New postponement for the launch of the Crew Dragon 3: after toilet problems and bad weather, it is now the 'slight illness' of one of the crew members to postpone the launch at least until Saturday 6 November.
It is not known which of the 4 astronauts is not well but NASA has specified that it is not a serious problem, nor Covid-19.
Another postponement, therefore, for what should be the third manned operational mission for the SpaceX Crew Dragon, which sees the presence on board of 4 astronauts - Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron of NASA and the astronaut of ' European Space Agency (ESA) Matthias Maurer - who will be engaged in a 6-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
In a note, NASA says that the new postponement is due to a simple malaise, without however specifying what type, and without saying who the astronaut protagonist of the inconvenience is. The US space agency also specified that the astronauts will continue the normal quarantine to which they had already been subjected for 2 weeks and that they will continue to "monitor the health of the crew while evaluating potential launch opportunities at the end of the week".
The first possible opportunity for the launch is at 11:36 pm (EDT time) on Saturday 6 November (4:36 am on Sunday 7 November in Italy) ”.
Crew-3 members, who will fly aboard a brand new shuttle at its first launch called Endurance, are expected to take over from the crew 2 mission astronauts who have been on the Space Station for 6 months already, including the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet of ESA.
NASA has specified that in case of further delays the four crew members of the Crew-2 could also return to Earth leaving a reduced crew of only 3 members on the ISS: the Russians Anton Shkaplerov (arrived last October) and Pyotr Dubrov, and American Mark Vande Hei.
The last two will have to remain in orbit for almost a year.
