Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Sunaina
NASA said Sunday that the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station has been postponed once more, this time until November 10th at 9:03 PM ET. Although NASA had planned a changing of the guard with the Crew-2 astronauts meeting the Crew-3 crew before Crew-2 departed, the space agency has chosen to return Crew 2 to Earth first, moving that trip from Sunday to Monday, November 8th at 2:05PM ET, due to weather concerns.
SpaceX reported in a tweet on Sunday that Wednesday has an 80 percent likelihood of suitable weather for liftoff. If all goes as planned, the ship will launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and dock with the ISS at 7:10 p.m. ET on November 11th.
The Crew-3 has been delayed multiple times since its initial October 31st launch date, once due to weather concerns and once due to a “small medical issue” with one of the crew members. NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, will board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to begin a six-month tenure on the International Space Station.
Crew-3 is SpaceX’s third operational crewed trip as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which employs commercial aircraft to transport NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. If it ever takes off, it will be the seventh time Space X has flown humans into space aboard its Crew Dragon; in May 2020, SpaceX flew two NASA astronauts to the ISS.
The launch will be livestreamed on YouTube and the NASA website.
