The flight of the American manned spacecraft Crew Dragon, which was scheduled to deliver the crew of Crew-9 to the International Space Station next week, has been postponed for more than a month. It is now expected to launch only on September 24. The reason for the postponement was partly the situation with the long-suffering ship Starliner, which is stuck in orbit because of problems with the engines.
Initially, it was assumed that the launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft with the Crew-9 crew on board would take place on August 18. Therefore, all the last months Alexander Gorbunov, included in the Crew-9 under the cross-flight program, has been undergoing various tests. Thus, in April he practiced typical operations with the ERA manipulator underwater, in June he performed the exit from the airlock and cargo transfer (in a hydro environment), and in July he successfully passed the comprehensive exam.
His understudy was Kirill Peskov, who also passed all the tests. Ultimately, on July 12, both cosmonauts were declared fit for space flight. Gorbunov was scheduled to go to the ISS this summer with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, and Stephanie Wilson, while Peskov was expected to go in February 2025. However, the upcoming flight schedule appears to be shifting slightly. According to NASA, the Crew-9 flight is now scheduled for September 24 at the earliest.
One of the reasons cited is the prolonged stay in orbit of the ship Starliner. Its crew of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams was supposed to spend about a week on the ISS, but because of problems with the engines of the orientation system of the ship, they had to stay in space for almost two months. The agency emphasized that the postponement of Crew-9 gives more time to finalize planning for Starliner’s return to Earth.
It is noted that ground teams are now analyzing the results of recent tests: they were conducted both at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico (during the tests, engineers recreated those faults that occurred on the ship during its flight and docking with the station on June 7), and in orbit – the engines on the Starliner itself were tested. “NASA and Boeing continue to assess the readiness of the spacecraft, and no decisions have yet been made regarding the return of Starliner,” NASA said in a statement.
In addition, the agency also does not want to create difficulties before the upcoming crew change of Russian Soyuz. As expected, on September 11, the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft with the participants of the 72nd long-term expedition: cosmonauts of Roscosmos Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner, as well as NASA astronaut Donald Pettit is to depart for the ISS. And on September 23, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson are scheduled to return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-25.
According to NASA, the launch of Crew Dragon as part of Crew-9 will be carried out from pad SLC-40 of the U.S. Space Force base at Cape Canaveral in Florida to avoid conflicts with the preparation for the flight of the automatic interplanetary station Europa Clipper – its launch is expected in September this year from pad 39A Kennedy Space Center. At the same time, NASA is going to postpone the 31st commercial cargo delivery under the contract with SpaceX to mid-October.
