Miami — The POT and SpaceX On Tuesday, the launch of the Crew-9 manned mission was postponed to next Saturday due to the Tropical Storm Helenewhich meteorologists predict will hit the west coast of Florida on Thursday as a major hurricane.
This mission was scheduled to take off towards the International Space Station (EEI) during the afternoon of Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Stationon the east coast of Florida, but weather forecasts ultimately forced the launch to take place at 1:17 p.m. local time on Saturday, according to NASA.
Helene could even become a major hurricane, that is, a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with a maximum of 5, by Thursday.when it is expected to reach the west coast of Florida and cause bad weather in a large part of this peninsula.
The US space agency today put the Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule on top, both from SpaceX, for the ignition of the engines and the final tests to be carried out tonight in preparation for the launch.
On Monday, NASA and SpaceX successfully completed final pre-launch checks for what will be the ninth rotation of crew members on the ISS in the company’s spacecraft. Elon Muskthe space agency reported.
The two Crew-9 crew members will be astronaut Nick Hague, mission commander, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, a specialist, who will remain in the orbital laboratory for about five months conducting research and a spacewalk.
This mission was planned to take off with four crew members, but will finally do so with only Hague and Gorbunov. to bring Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, the astronauts who traveled to the ISS aboard the Starliner capsule, on the return trip of the Dragon.
Earlier this month, the ship Boeing returned without its two crew members due to technical problems that could not be resolved and that led NASA to keep Wilmore and Williams on the space station until February 2025, which is when the Dragon is scheduled to return.
One of the changes that came from that ill-fated Starliner test mission is the change of launch platform for Crew-9.
From the planned location at Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center, it has moved to Complex 40 of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which will thus host the launch of a manned mission for the first time.