The next crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX's Crew-10, has been delayed to no earlier than late March 2025, NASA announced on Tuesday (Dec. 17).
Crew-10 was originally slated to fly in February, but it has been pushed back to allow time for SpaceX to complete work on a brand-new Crew Dragon spacecraft for the mission, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday.
The delay means at least an extra month aboard the ISS for the astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-9 flight, who won't depart the orbital laboratory until after Crew-10's arrival.
Crew-9's manifest includes NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched to the ISS on Starliner in early June and were integrated into the SpaceX mission when Starliner was forced to return to Earth without the astronauts aboard, due to vehicle complications and safety concerns.
The new delay will bring Wilmore and Williams' time in space to around nine months in total — far longer than the 10 days or so their mission was originally expected to last.
Source: www.space.com
No comments:
Post a Comment