NASA, SpaceX delay Crew-6 launch to space station

By Trevor Mogg Published February 22, 2023

Following a flight readiness review on Tuesday, NASA and SpaceX have decided to delay the Crew-6 launch to the International Space Station by about 24 hours.

The additional time will enable launch personnel to sort out some relatively minor issues with the launch vehicle, officials said.

Recommended Videos

Originally set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Sunday morning, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon carrying four astronauts is now expected to depart the launchpad at 1:45 a.m. ET on Monday, February 27.

Crew-6 comprises NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, along with United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

The mission will be the fourth spaceflight for Bowen, who flew space shuttle missions STS-126 in 2008, STS-132 in 2010, and STS-133 in 2011, while it will be the first trip to orbit for Hoburg, Alneyadi, and Fedyaev. It’s also SpaceX’s first crewed flight since October 2022.

Live coverage of the final preparations and the launch itself will start at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 26. Digital Trends has more information on how you can watch the live stream. The crew will fly aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour, reaching International Space Station (ISS) about 24 hours later. The arrival, docking, and welcoming of the new crew will also be live-streamed by NASA.

The crew’s stay aboard the ISS will last about six months, during which time they’ll work on a slew of science experiments in microgravity conditions, perform spacewalks to maintain and upgrade the orbital outpost, and take time out to enjoy the kind of spectacular scenery that you can only get from a position 250 miles above Earth.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Space

Elon Musk’ Starlink could soon offer mobile services as a US carrier

Showcase of T-Mobile Starlink service on an iPhone.

Elon Musk’s Starlink has already changed how millions of people access the internet, especially in places where traditional broadband struggles to reach. Now, the satellite internet service could be preparing for an even bigger leap — becoming your mobile carrier.

According to a Financial Times report, SpaceX has told investors it’s considering launching a retail Starlink mobile service in the US. Instead of simply partnering with wireless carriers, the company could begin selling mobile plans directly to consumers, putting it in direct competition with Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.

Space

Lightsails have hit another speed bump on the road to interstellar travel

The coolest interstellar travel idea may get betrayed by the light pushing it

LightSail in Earth orbit

Laser-powered lightsails are one of the coolest answers to spaceflight. It might not be as sci-fi-sounding as a warp drive, but now, its practicality has also come under question. Using lightsails, a spacecraft could unfurl an ultra-thin reflective sail and let a powerful laser push it toward another star, without relying on fuel.

The tech was simple and elegant--except it's also more complicated than it sounds. A new preprint from researchers Chao Shen and Jiaze Li of the Harbin Institute of Technology suggests that relativistic lightsails may run into a hidden propulsion problem once they start moving extremely fast.

Space

The galaxy has an exoplanet size mystery, and NASA’s EVE mission wants to solve it

This planet-hunting mission wants to catch baby worlds before they grow up

Artist’s Illustration of Exoplanets Orbiting Barnard’s Star

Mankind venturing into space ended up creating more questions than it answered, and one of the dilemmas is related to the planet sizes. Astronomers have found plenty of rocky super-Earths and plenty of puffier sub-Neptunes, but far fewer planets with a radius of about 1.8 times Earth’s.

That gap is known as the radius valley, and a proposed mission called the Early eVolution Explorer, or EVE, wants to figure out why it exists. NASA has a simple plan: look at planets while they are still young. The mission concept, detailed in a new arXiv preprint and covered by Phys.org, would focus on newly formed star clusters to see what small planets look like before billions of years of evolution.