This was the second time the mission had been postponed in a week. The space agency cited an unspecified medical issue with one of the crew.
On Monday, NASA announced that there had been a health-related delay in the launch of the SpaceX rocket with four astronauts to the International Space Station. This was the second time the mission had been postponed in a week. The space agency cited an unspecified medical issue with one of the crew.
According to NASA, it is a “minor medical issue” and “not a medical emergency and not related to Covid-19”. The space agency did not exactly elaborate on the nature of the problem or reveal which astronaut was involved.
This launch was initially supposed to take place on Sunday, October 31, but it was postponed until Wednesday because of unsuitable weather conditions. Now it has been postponed till Saturday for the second time.
Previously, something like this had happened in 1990 when NASA delayed a scheduled launch over a medical issue involving the crew of a Space Shuttle Atlantis flight. In that instance, it was mission commander John Creighton who had fallen ill.
Therefore, there was a pause in the countdown for three days till he was fit enough to fly. After that delay, there were two additional postponements related to the weather.
The vehicle that was set to fly this weekend consisted of a Crew Dragon capsule and a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. It will now launch at 11.36 pm on Saturday from Nasa’s Kennedy space centre in the Cape Canaveral area in Florida.
If it all goes smoothly, the three US and European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts will come in 22 hours later and dock with the space station 400km (250 miles) above the Earth to begin a six-month science mission.
For now, the crew members will be under quarantine at the Cape with continuing launch preparations.
The Crew
German astronaut Matthias Maurer, 51, who is an ESA mission specialist, will be joining the three NASA astronauts, i.e., flight commander Raja Chari, mission pilot Tom Marshburn, and mission specialist Kayla Barron.
Raja Chari is a US Air Force combat jet and test pilot, Kayla Barron is a US Navy submarine officer as well as a nuclear engineer, and Matthias Maurer is a material science engineer. All three of them are making their debut spaceflights aboard the Dragon vehicle.
Tom Marshburn is a physician and also a former NASA flight surgeon. He is the most experienced astronaut of the crew, having logged two previous spaceflights and four spacewalks.
Saturday’s launch, if successful, would be the fifth human spaceflight SpaceX has achieved to date, following its inaugural launch in September of a space tourism service that sent the first-ever all-civilian crew into orbit.
All Eyes On Raja Chari
There has been quite a lot of focus on Indian American Raja Chari, a fighter pilot with the US Air Force. He is all set to make his debut space flight as commander of the Crew-3 mission. Chari served as a colonel in the US Air Force before he became a NASA astronaut in 2017.
He was born to Peggy Egbert and Sreenivas V Chari in Milwaukee, US. He traces his Indian roots to his father, Sreenivas V Chari, who came to the United States from Hyderabad to pursue academic interests.
In December 2020, Chari was selected as a part of the Artemis Team, a group of astronauts to help pave the way for the next lunar missions. That same month, he became the first astronaut from Group 22 to be selected for a space mission, which he will command, i.e., SpaceX Crew-3. Chari will be the first NASA rookie to command a spaceflight since Gerald Carr, who commanded the Skylab 4 mission in 1973.
