NASA, SpaceX Extend ISS Crew 6 Stay as Launch of Crew 7 Gets Delayed

The next crew to fly to the International Space Station has been pushed back from its planned Friday launch time. The mission now is targeted for 3:27 am (local time; 07:27 GMT) on Saturday, August 26, for SpaceX’s seventh crew rotation mission to the microgravity laboratory for NASA, the US space agency said in a statement. The delay aims to ensure “the highest level of safety and preparedness for the flight,” NASA added.

Those astronauts who were going to fly on the mission—first-time spacewalker Robbie Fowler and three other members of the current Expedition 67 crew—will stay aboard the station for another two months until they are scheduled to return to Earth on March 2. They will be replaced by the Crew-7 astronauts, who will spend about four months in orbit. During their mission, the crew will perform more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations to prepare for future exploration of low-Earth orbit and benefit life on the planet. The astronauts will study materials sciences, plant science, human factors, cellular and molecular biology, astronomy, oceanography, and other topics to advance knowledge that supports NASA’s vision of sending humans into deep space and returning them safely home.

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The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will journey to the ISS using an uncrewed Falcon 9 rocket, set for its fourth and final test flight this week. The rocket’s first stage will be discarded, but the second stage is still intact and could be used for a future resupply mission. The Dragon spacecraft will also be discarded, but its solar arrays and other external equipment will be used for future missions.

This will be the seventh launch of a SpaceX commercial resupply mission to the ISS and the eighth under the agency’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability program. NASA selected Boeing’s Starliner in 2014 to complete six additional crewed flights to the ISS, but that timeline has slipped.

The Crew-7 mission will take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and astronauts completed a full dress rehearsal for the countdown overnight on Tuesday. The astronauts will review their procedures on Wednesday, and SpaceX will run a static fire test of the Dragon’s Merlin engines at Kennedy’s Pad 39A later in the day. A weather forecast calls for clear skies and calm winds during the window. A NASA-run debris avoidance maneuver by the ISS will be conducted on Thursday afternoon to ensure the ISS is not in the way of the Dragon’s approach. Tickets to see the launch are available through NASA’s website. Packages include launch viewing seats, a VIP experience inside the Apollo/Saturn V Center, and access to the KSC visitor complex. SpaceX is scheduled to launch its satellite next Thursday so that the spacecraft’s flight will not conflict with the Crew-7 launch. SpaceX will update ticket holders on the launch time once it becomes official.