NASA postpones launch of ISS Crew-5 mission to October 3 citing spacecraft traffic

NASA announced that it has delayed its Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a few days. Previously scheduled for September 29, the mission will now launch on October 3 when the launch window opens at 10:15 pm IST (12:45 pm EDT). In an update released earlier this week, the agency said that the decision will allow "for extra separation with spacecraft traffic coming to and from the space station". 

The team of Crew-5 comprises four members which include two NASA astronauts (Mission Commander Nicole Mann and Pilot Josh Cassada), one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Koichi Wakata), and one Russian cosmonaut (Anna Kikina). Read more about the crew. These members will take off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center inside the Dragon spacecraft 'Endurance' mounted atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. 

The Crew- 5 is being launched to replace the astronauts of Crew-4 who would be returning after a six-month-long stay aboard the orbital outpost. Members of Crew-4 include Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins from NASA along with European astronaut Samantha Christoforetti who arrived at the ISS on April 28. 

Crew-5 to script history

The Crew-5 mission would be historic as it would see the first Russian cosmonaut (Kikina) board a commercial US spacecraft for a trip to the ISS. Preparing for her first spaceflight, Kikina is the only active cosmonaut in Russia and she would also be the first Russian woman to fly in an American-made spacecraft. Her flight is part of an integrated flight agreement between NASA and Roscosmos (Russia's space agency) under which the latter would also launch a NASA astronaut on a Soyuz capsule. 

Recently, Oleg Kononenko, Deputy Head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, said that she is completely ready to work aboard the space station and is capable of coping with the challenges. Talking about the seat-swap agreement, Roscosmos Chief Yuri Borisov, on the other hand, said that the extension of such agreements will be decided after the successful execution of the upcoming missions, TASS News reported. 

Roscosmos is launching Mark Rubio, a NASA astronaut to the ISS in its Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on September 21 as part of the deal. He is currently training at the Star City Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and will launch to the space station from Kazakhstan.