NASA has revealed a new target date for the International Space Station (ISS) for the first operational flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.
The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon is now ready to take off from launch complex 39A on Saturday, October 31 at 2:40 pm ET at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Earlier, NASA designated October 23, 2020 as the expected launch date.
Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and NASA's Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JXA) will be inside the Crew Dragon located above Falcon 9 for the Crew-1 mission. The astronauts are scheduled to spend a period of six months living and working in the ISS.
The launch broke three months after NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley at the end of the crew's successful demo-2 test mission in the Gulf of Mexico, which docked with the space station for nine weeks.
The historic Demo-2 mission marked the first astronaut launch for SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, and was also the first astronaut launch from American Earth since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
A week later than originally planned, NASA said the new 31 October launch date allows it to avoid any potential conflicts with the upcoming ISS-bound Soyuz MS-17 mission that is currently due for mid-October is defined.
In addition, the space agency said that the extra time gives both it and SpaceX ample opportunity to make final preparations to land and board the station.
These include sorting out a minor air leak aboard the space station before a four-man crew arrived in late October. The leak was first noticed in September 2019 but was not considered a priority at the time. Recently, however, the rate of leakage has increased, prompting the space agency to make a serious effort to track it - an exercise that is proving to be more challenging than expected.
The success of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft means that NASA now has its own vehicle to bring the spacecraft from the space station and end US dependence on Russian Soyuz launches.
Editors recommendations
