Axiom Mission 4 launch postponed yet again; NASA, SpaceX release new date
The launch of Axiom Mission 4, which will take Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla into space, has been postponed to provide NASA time to evaluate repair work in the space station. Axiom Space said in a statement on Wednesday morning that SpaceX and the American space agency are targeting to launch the spacecraft no earlier than Sunday, June 22.
"NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than Sunday, June 22, for launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4. The change in a targeted launch date provides NASA time to continue evaluating space station operations after recent repair work in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station's Zvezda service module," the company said in a statement.
The mission will be piloted by Shukla. Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission. The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The crew will lift off aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced last week that the spacecraft would be launched on June 19, as SpaceX successfully resolved the liquid oxygen leak in its Falcon-9 rocket.
The Axiom Space mission was to blast off from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on June 11, but the launch had to be delayed first due to a fuel leak in SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket and then due to a leak in the Russian section of the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission, which is expected to run for fourteen days, will "realise the return" to human spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary.
The mission has witnessed several postponements over the past month.
The astronauts were originally scheduled for lift-off on May 29, which was put off to June 8, June 10 and June 11.
On June 10, the mission was deferred because SpaceX engineers detected a liquid oxygen (LOX) leak on the Falcon-9 booster during the re-entry phase of its previous mission.
With inputs from PTI
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