Washington, Nov 15: The SpaceX “Resilience” Crew Dragon manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will take four astronauts into orbit on Sunday.
The launch of the first ever operational commercial crew mission is set for November 15, 19:27 eastern time (00:27 GMT on Monday, November 16). It follows the SpaceX Demo-2 mission that took NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS in May this year.
The SpaceX Crew-1 mission will carry US astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi from Japan for a six-month stay on the ISS.
On Friday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said that the launch of the “Resilience” mission was being delayed until Sunday because of high onshore winds. The original launch time was on Saturday evening.
The rough sea conditions are a problem for the launch, since they stand in the way of the drone ship successfully reaching the discarded first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. According to Bridenstine, the discarded booster should be reused for the SpaceX Crew-2 mission that is expected to be launched in March 2021. (AGENCIES)
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