A “minor medical issue” involving one of its crew members has forced NASA to postpone for a second time, the launch of Space X’s upcoming Crew-3 mission, the agency has announced. The earliest possibility for the launch is at 11:36pm EDT on November 6, the space agency further said about the mission, which was initially scheduled to take off on October 31, but was then delayed to November 3.
“The issue is not a medical emergency and not related to Covid-19. We take every effort to protect the crew prior to its launch through a health stabilisation plan. Crew-3 astronauts will remain in quarantine at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida while preparing for their launch,” NASA noted in its statement.
It further said that the mission’s SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule are Falcon 9 rocket are in “good” shape. The 4-member Crew-3 mission will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari (mission commander), Tom Marshburn (pilot), Kayla Barron (mission specialist), as well as European Space Agency’s (ESA) Matthias Baurer (mission specialist), to the International Space Station (ISS), where they will stay until late April next year.
As its name denotes, Crew-3 is SpaceX’s third operational mission to the ISS for NASA. The second, Crew-2, was launched to the orbiting lab on April 23. The space agency is also evaluating dates for this second mission to return to earth. Crew-2 comprises NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Akihiko Hoshide, along with ESA’s Thomas Pesquet.
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