Flight of astronauts aboard Crew Dragon to ISS postponed due to bad weather
The American aerospace agency NASA has postponed the planned flight of the astronaut crew on the SpaceX Crew Dragon to the International Space Station. The reason for this was inappropriate weather conditions. NASA Director James Bridenstine wrote about this on his Twitter account.
In the message of the head of NASA, it is said that the decision to postpone the launch was made due to onshore winds and restoration work. The launch scheduled for today will take place tomorrow from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. James Bridenstine also announced plans to reuse the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle for future astronaut launches of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
It is noteworthy that Crew Dragon is used for the first time for the implementation of an operational NASA mission. Previously, two successful demonstration flights were carried out, after which NASA certified the Elon Musk company for organizing operational missions to deliver astronauts to the ISS and return them back to Earth. Elon Musk himself called this launch “the first combat flight of the Crew Dragon . “
As part of the upcoming mission, it is planned to deliver three Americans and one Japanese astronaut to the ISS. In total, for 2020 and 2021, SpaceX intends to carry out three launches of Crew Dragon ships with astronauts on board.
As a reminder, since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was closed, American astronauts have been delivered to the ISS using Russian Soyuz spacecraft. That changed after SpaceX carried out a successful mission this spring to bring astronauts to and from the ISS.
