The takeoff was scheduled from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday at 1:45 a.m. (0645 GMT) with, on board, the Crew-6 crew made up of two American astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an Emirati astronaut who must spend six months in the ISS.
Their Dragon capsule was to dock with the space station after a journey of about a day for the sixth regular rotation mission provided by SpaceX, the company of Elon Musk. But two minutes before takeoff, it was canceled. “#Crew6 launch today canceled due to ground systems issue,” NASA tweeted.
SpaceX drained the fuel from its Falcon 9 rocket and the crew disembarked, NASA then said in a press release specifying that a new launch attempt was scheduled for Thursday March 2 at 00:34 (05:34 GMT), “according to the resolution of the technical problem that prevented the launch on Monday”.
“I am proud of the attention and commitment of the NASA and SpaceX teams for the safety of Crew-6,” said the boss of the American space agency, Bill Nelson, quoted in the press release. “Human spaceflight is an inherently risky business and, as always, we will fly when we are ready.”
Originally scheduled for Sunday, the flight had already been postponed for 24 hours on Tuesday by NASA. The Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, the Russian Andreï Fediayev and the Emirati Sultan al-Neyadi must spend six months in the ISS.
At 41, Sultan al-Neyadi will become the fourth astronaut from an Arab country in history, the second Emirati, but the first from his country to spend six months in space. His compatriot Hazzaa al-Mansoori flew an eight-day mission in 2019. “We are physically, mentally and technically ready,” Sultan al-Neyadi told reporters upon arriving at the space center on Tuesday. “It’s a great honor to be here, and even a privilege.”
Warren Hoburg and Andrei Fediaev also made their first spaceflight.
Mr. Fedayev is also the second Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a Space X rocket to the ISS as part of an exchange program maintained despite tensions between Washington and Moscow, a year after the invasion. Russian in Ukraine.
It was already planned before the Moscow offensive that Russians travel with SpaceX and Americans with Russian Soyuz ships. The space station is one of the few fields of cooperation still in progress between the two countries.
Asked about the impact of these political tensions on the crew, the mission commander, the American Stephen Bowen, replied on Tuesday that it was “rare that these issues are raised in everyday conversations”, and that he and his teammates remained “focused on the mission”.
The capsule carrying the crew, named Endeavour, has already flown three times in space.
NASA hires the services of the American company SpaceX to send its astronauts approximately every six months to the flying laboratory.
They conduct scientific experiments there and ensure the maintenance of the station, which has been permanently inhabited for more than 22 years.
Crew-6 will replace the four members of Crew-5 (two Americans, a Russian and a Japanese), who arrived in October 2022 and who will return to Earth aboard their own SpaceX ship, after a few days of handover.
On board the ISS are also three other passengers (two Russians and an American), who arrived on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The latter suffered a leak last December, which made their return to Earth on board dangerous. The Russian space agency Roscomos therefore sent a rescue vessel, which docked safely with the ISS on Saturday.