SpaceX postponed an attempt to launch three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station late Sunday due to high winds along the trajectory of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The SpaceX launch director announced the delay just before 8 p.m. EST, citing “elevated ascent winds” as the reason for standing down from the launch attempt.
Commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin had suited up in their white SpaceX pressure suits and were ready to depart for the launch pad when the countdown was halted.
If conditions improve, they will have another opportunity to launch on Sunday at 10:53 p.m. EST, with a planned docking at the space station’s forward port around 3 a.m. Tuesday.
The crew may have to splash down in the event of an abort, thus heavy winds and choppy waves in the Atlantic Ocean caused the initial launch, which was supposed to happen at 12:04 a.m. on Friday, to be postponed for two days.
Assuming a successful launch on Sunday, the Crew Dragon “Endeavour” is expected to rendezvous with the space station early Tuesday, approaching from behind and below before autonomously docking at the lab’s forward port around 3 a.m.
Waiting to welcome Crew 8 aboard will be their Soyuz crewmates Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who arrived at the station last September.
Also present on board will be Crew 7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, who launched from the Kennedy Space Center last August. They are wrapping up a 198-day mission and will be replaced by Crew 8.
Following the departure of Moghbeli and her crewmates around March 12, Roscosmos plans to launch veteran cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, Belarusian guest flier Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson on March 21 aboard the Soyuz MS-25/71S ferry ship.
The mission aims to transport Dyson to the station for a six-month tour and to deliver a fresh Soyuz for Kononenko and Chub, who are halfway through a yearlong stay in space.
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will return to Earth on April 2, along with NASA’s O’Hara, using the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft that carried Kononenko, Chub, and O’Hara to the station last September.
Dyson will return to Earth in September, joining Kononenko and Chub aboard the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft delivered by Novitskiy. With four previous flights, Kononenko will have accumulated over 1,100 days in orbit, setting a new world record for the most time spent in space.
