NASA announced that they had delayed the 5th crew’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS) several days. Previously scheduled for September 29, the mission will now be launched on October 3 when the launch window opens at 22:15 Ist (12:45 PM EDT). In an update released earlier this week, the agency said that the decision would be possible “for additional separation from space aircraft traffic that came to and from space station”.
The Crew-5 team consisted of four members which included two NASA astronauts (Nicole Mann mission commander and pilot Josh Cassada), one of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (Koichi Wakata), and one Russian cosmonaot (Anna Kikina). Read more about the crew. These members will take off from the Launch Complex 39A at the NASA Kennedy Space Center on the Dragon ‘Endurance’ spacecraft mounted on the Falcon 9 Spacex rocket. The crew-5 was launched to replace the Astronaut Kru-4 who will return after staying for six months on the orbital post. Kru-4 members including Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins from NASA along with European astronauts Samantha Christoforetti who arrived at ISS on April 28.
Crew-5 to script history
The crew-5 mission will be historic because it will see the first Russian Cosmononaut Space Space (Kikina) aircraft a US commercial spacecraft for trips to ISS. Preparing for her first spaceflight, Kikina is the only active cosmonaut in Russia and she will also be the first Russian woman to fly on American spacecraft. The flight is part of an integrated flight agreement between NASA and Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) where the latter will also launch NASA astronauts with Soyuz capsules.
Read | Nasa Dlays Crew-5 launch with Russian cosmonauts to ISS due to damaged spacex rockets
Recently, Oleg Konencko, Deputy Head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, said that he was really ready to work on the space station and was able to overcome challenges. Speaking of the chair-swap agreements, Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, on the other hand, said that the extension of the agreement would be decided after the success of the future mission, Tass News reported.
Read | Spacex to launch NASA crew-5 missions with Russian cosmonauts on boats on September 29
Roscosmos launched Mark Rubio, NASA astronaut to ISS on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on September 21 as part of the agreement. He is currently practicing at the Cosmononaut Star City training center near Moscow with Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Pelelin and will be launched to the space station from Kazakhstan.