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Nasa's delayed SpaceX Crew-3 mission set for liftoff, will replace ISS crew
Elon Musk's SpaceX, as part of Nasa's commercial crew programme, has been sending out operational crewed flights to outer space to bring astronauts to and from the ISS.
SpaceX will launch its Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday morning, with the Falcon-9 rocket all set to take in its Dragon capsule the agency's third long-duration crew to the station in outer space. The launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday, as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) had planned to have a change of guard with the Crew-2 astronauts greeting the Crew-3 team before the former departed, but Nasa switched the order in view of the weather concerns and an astronaut's undisclosed medical condition.
Four astronauts from the second team were already brought back on Monday and the task of welcoming the third crew now falls to the lone American and two Russians left behind at the space station.
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In a tweet, SpaceX informed that launch conditions for the Crew-3 mission are mostly advantageous on Wednesday, with the weather forecast being 80 per cent favourable for lift-off.
“Following Crew-2's return to Earth, Falcon 9 will launch Dragon’s third long-duration crew mission to the @Space_Station as soon as Wednesday, November 10; weather forecast is 80% favorable for liftoff,” posted SpaceX from its official handle on Twitter, earlier this week.
Elon Musk's SpaceX, as part of Nasa's commercial crew programme, has been sending out operational crewed flights to outer space to bring astronauts to and from the ISS. Crew-3 is the third of such operational crewed flight for SpaceX; the agency had first sent two Nasa astronauts to the ISS back in May 2020.
Meanwhile, the four astronauts from the Crew-2 mission returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring. Their homecoming — coming just eight hours after leaving the International Space Station — paved the way for SpaceX's launch of their four replacements.
This next crew will also spend six months up there in space, welcoming back-to-back groups of tourists. A Japanese tycoon and his personal assistant will get a lift from the Russian Space Agency in December, followed by three businessmen arriving via SpaceX in February.
