Image: NASA
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Friday announced an adjustment to the target launch date of the SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Crew-4 mission, previously set to launch Friday, April 15, now has a “no earlier than” launch date of Tuesday, April 19.
NASA said the delay is meant to “allow appropriate spacing for operations and post-flight data reviews between human spaceflight missions and to allow for multiple consecutive launch attempts based on the orbital mechanics for arrival to the space station.”
Crew-4 will blast off aboard a new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Crew-4 team comprises NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Earlier this month, the four astronauts took a trip to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, to train for their upcoming mission.
The team is slated for a science expedition aboard the ISS, where they will live and work as part of the orbiting laboratory’s Expeditions 67 and 68.
Alongside the Crew-4 launch delay, NASA also announced that SpaceX and Axiom Space are adjusting the launch date for the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) to the ISS to “allow teams to complete final spacecraft processing ahead of the mission”
Crew-4 will mark NASA’s fourth crew rotation mission with SpaceX. The space agency last month announced it had contracted SpaceX for three additional ISS crew missions under its Commercial Crew Transportation Capabilities (CCtCap) program.
