SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, which will send only two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) with two empty seats on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, has been postponed again. This time the delay is only one day. The new launch date is set for September 26.
The launch was originally scheduled for August 18 with four crew members, but it was postponed to allow the Boeing Starliner capsule to return to Earth. NASA has decided to keep astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams on the station. The free seats on Crew Dragon are reserved for their return to Earth next February.
The Crew-9 launch had been rescheduled for September 25, but it was postponed again to allow teams the time to prepare before launch and monitor weather conditions. The new launch time is 2:05 p.m. EDT (1805 GMT) on September 26.
The crew will include NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. They will join Wilmore and Williams, as well as the Soyuz crew and the current ISS crew. The previous Crew-8 team will return to Earth afterward.
For Hague, this will be his second mission to the ISS and third spaceflight. He has previously visited the station in 2019, working on Expedition 59 and 60, and spent a total of 203 days in space.
Upon arrival, the Crew-9 team will work on a number of scientific experiments, including investigating blood cell development in space and the effects of vitamin B on vision during long-duration missions. They will also be involved in station maintenance, such as installing patches on the NICER X-ray telescope to improve the accuracy of measurements.
We previously reported on how astronaut Sarah Gillis played a Star Wars tune.
According to space.com
