The four new ISS crew members will have to wait a little longer before heading into orbit.
CAPE CANAVERAL—NASA and SpaceX are delaying the Crew-8 launch to the International Space Station by two days due to expected poor weather downrange, a concern in case of a launch abort, the agency said Feb. 29.
The launch of NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, previously planned for 12:04 a.m. EST March 1 aboard their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is now targeted 11:16 p.m. March 2. Their capsule, Crew Dragon Endeavour, would dock at the ISS at about 2:10 p.m. March 2.
“High wind and waves along the eastern seaboard have been observed and are forecast to continue through Saturday morning,” NASA wrote in an update on its website. “In the unlikely case of an abort during launch or the flight of Dragon, the wind and wave conditions must be within acceptable conditions for the safe recovery of the crew and spacecraft.”
The Crew-8 mission will mark SpaceX’s 13th human spaceflight, nine of which will have been for NASA under a Commercial Crew Transportation Capabilities (CCtCap) contract worth about $5 billion. SpaceX also has flown three charter flights to the ISS for Houston-based Axiom Space and conducted one orbital private mission for entrepreneur and pilot Jared Isaacman.
NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing for flight service contracts in 2014. Boeing, which holds a separate, $4.4 billion CCtCap contract, is preparing for a crewed flight test of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in April.
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