While he has been in the ISS for six months, Thomas Pesquet will have to take his illness patiently before returning to Earth.
NASA and SpaceX have indeed postponed until Wednesday the takeoff of the rocket which was to send four astronauts to the International Space Station in order to avoid "a major storm system", the American agency announced on Saturday.
The crew of this Crew-3 mission was to take off on Sunday aboard the Crew Dragon capsule called "Endurance", attached to a Falcon 9 rocket, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch will finally take place 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.
Launch Update ➡️ @ NASA's @SpaceX # Crew3 mission is now targeted for Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 1:10 am ET due to a large storm system elevating winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean along the Crew Dragon flight path for the Oct. 31 launch attempt.
Learn more: https://t.co/WdCdLAKnd4 pic.twitter.com/Z2u0nFRmC6
- NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) October 30, 2021
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 are in the ISS since April, she added.
If the launch proves impossible again on Wednesday, there is "a possibility of relief" on Thursday, November 4, SpaceX said on its website.
Crew-3 will also spend six 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.
Read alsoWake up a blob: Pesquet's curious mission in the ISS ... and thousands of students on Earth
The Crew-3 crew will spend six months in orbit and conduct research aimed at facilitating future distant space explorations or bringing useful knowledge to life on Earth.
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 by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the end of the year, then passengers on the SpaceX Axiom mission, scheduled for February 2022.