Ax-4 Pushed Back Again, No New Date Yet
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BENGALURU: The launch of Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4), which will take India's Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and three others to space, will not happen this Sunday or Monday. There's no fresh date announced as of Friday.
Nasa, Axiom Space and SpaceX standing down from the launch as the space agency needs additional time to continue evaluating International Space Station (ISS) operations after recent repair work in the aft (back) most segment of the orbital laboratory's Zvezda service module.
'Because of the space station's interconnected and interdependent systems, Nasa wants to ensure the station is ready for additional crew members, and the agency is taking the time necessary to review data,' a statement read.
Stating that they appreciate the historic nature of this mission for India, Poland, and Hungary, the statement added that the crew remains in quarantine in Florida, and the astronauts stand ready to launch when the station is ready to receive them.
The launch, originally targeted for May 29, was deferred to June 8 following the detection of an issue in the electrical harness of the Crew Dragon module, Isro had said earlier.
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It was then postponed by a day to June 9 — which was not publicly announced — and then rescheduled to June 10.
The June 10 launch was rescheduled once again. During preparations for a hot fire test on June 8, SpaceX engineers detected a liquid oxygen (LOX) leak in Falcon-9. An anomaly was also found in one of the engine actuators, which was subsequently replaced along with its controller.
Expecting a quick resolution of the LOX leak, the mission was initially rescheduled for June 11.
Isro said it had stressed on crew safety in review meetings. Mission partners on late on June 10 decided to postpone the launch further to conduct a test to validate the corrections carried out.
After postponements owing to liquid oxygen (LOX) leak in the Falcon-9 rocket, the wait for Axiom-4 mission launch and India's Shubhanshu Shukla going to space got extended further because of an issue at the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission partners then announced June 19 as a probable date. And Nasa, earlier this week said it was continuing to work with Roscosmos (Russian space agency) 'to understand the most recent repair efforts to seal small leaks'.
The leaks located in the aft segment of the space station's Zvezda service module, have been monitored by flight controllers for several years, Nasa said.
'Recent repair efforts by Roscosmos appear to have stabilised pressure in the transfer tunnel, though teams are still evaluating whether the leaks have been fully sealed or if air is flowing into the area from the main station,' it added.
On June 18, another announcement said that the launch could happen on June 22 with a back-up date available on June 23.
At present, Nasa, Axiom or SpaceX have not yet committed to a new launch date.
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