The launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon shuttle, which today should have departed from the Kennedy Space Center with four astronauts on board to reach the International Space Station (ISS), has been postponed: the cause is a technical problem with the ignition system of the Falcon 9 rocket, in particular to the fluid that allows the engines to fire, as NASA commentator Gary Jordan has said. A new launch attempt, initially scheduled for 7.45 am Italian today, could take place tomorrow 28 February starting at 7.22 am Italian, if the technicians manage to solve the problem and if the weather conditions are favourable.
Today promises to be very busy for Elon Musk’s company. In fact, two launches of Starlink satellites for the global Internet are also planned, less than an hour apart: one from the base of Cape Canaveral (Florida) at 19.38 Italian time, the other from the of Vandenberg (California) at 20.31. If Crew-6 gets off the ground tomorrow, SpaceX will make three launches in under 12 hours—an unprecedented feat. The current record involving three close launches of the company, in fact, is 34 hours, for three missions launched in December last year.
The Crew-6 mission is to bring Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi and Russian Andrey Fedyaev to the ISS, who will join the seven colleagues already on board. Al Neyadi will be the first person from the UAE to spend a long-duration mission aboard the Space Station. For SpaceX it will be the sixth manned operational mission on behalf of NASA and the ninth overall.
Source: Ansa
I am a journalist with over 6 years of experience working in the news industry. I currently work as an author for Global Happenings, and my coverage focuses on Technology news. I have written for various publications, including Reuters, The New York Times and The Guardian.
