NASA and SpaceX have postponed to Wednesday, November 3 the takeoff of the rocket which was to send four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in order to avoid "
a major storm system
", the American agency announced on Saturday, October 30.
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The crew of this “Crew-3” mission was to take off on Sunday October 31 aboard the Crew Dragon capsule called “Endurance”, attached to a Falcon 9 rocket, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"A brief passing of the baton"
The launch will finally take place on Wednesday at 1:10 am local time (5:10 GMT), and "
Crew-3 will arrive at the space station that same evening at around 11:00 pm (3:00 GMT Thursday),
" NASA said.
They will then proceed to "
a brief handover with the astronauts who had flown to the station as part of the mission of the agency called SpaceX Crew-2
", including the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, who is in the ISS since April, she added.
If the launch turns out to be impossible again on Wednesday, there is "
a possibility of relief
" on Thursday, November 4, SpaceX said on its website.
6 months in orbit
Crew-3, the third regular manned mission provided by SpaceX on behalf of NASA, is part of the multi-billion dollar contract signed with the private company of Elon Musk by the American agency after having terminated to its own space shuttle program in 2011.
The Crew-3 crew will spend 6 months in orbit and conduct research aimed at facilitating future distant space exploration or bringing useful knowledge to life on Earth.
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The mission includes an experiment to grow plants in space without soil or other growth substrate.
Another aims to manufacture optical fibers in microgravity, which, according to research already carried out, could give them a higher quality than those produced in the Earth's atmosphere.
Crew-3 astronauts will also carry out spacewalks to complete the renovation of the ISS's solar panels and they will host two tourist missions: Japanese brought in by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the end of the year, then passengers on the SpaceX Axiom mission, scheduled for February 2022.
