Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

SpaceX calls off Friday’s Crew-7 launch to the space station

By
Add as a preferred source on Google

Crew-7's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft on the launchpad.
Crew-7’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft on the launchpad. SpaceX

UPDATE: About four hours prior to the targeted launch time, SpaceX posted a message saying it was calling off Friday morning’s launch attempt and would now target early Saturday morning instead.

Recommended Videos

SpaceX and NASA are now targeting no earlier than Saturday, August 26 for Falcon 9 to launch Dragon to the @space_station. The new launch date provides teams additional time to complete and discuss analysis. The vehicles remain healthy and crew is ready to fly →… pic.twitter.com/ojWTwRTS8v

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2023

NASA and SpaceX are preparing to launch four more astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission had been scheduled to get underway from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:50 a.m. ET (12:50 a.m. PT) on Friday morning, but late on Thursday SpaceX said it was now targeting no earlier than 3:27 a.m. ET (12:27 a.m. PT) on Saturday, August 26. A backup opportunity is available at 3:04 a.m. ET (12:04 a.m. PT) on Sunday.

The reason for the delay isn’t clear, with SpaceX only saying that the crew and vehicle were fine and that the schedule change would give it “additional time to complete and discuss analysis.”

When the mission does get underway, the early stages of the flight will be live-streamed using multiple cameras, with real-time audio feeds from Mission Control and the crew capsule also part of the broadcast.

Just minutes after it powers the capsule to space, viewers can also enjoy the always-remarkable spectacle of the reusable first-stage booster returning to Earth. While it usually lands on a droneship off the coast of Florida, this mission will see it touching down at Landing Zone 1 close to the launch site.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch the live stream.

After reaching the space station on Saturday, the astronauts — NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos — will spend the next six months conducting science and technology demonstrations that could benefit humanity on Earth, and also preparing for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft supporting the Crew-7 mission previously flew NASA’s Crew-3 and Crew-5 missions to and from the ISS.

Be sure to check SpaceX’s social feeds for the latest information on the launch schedule.

To learn more about everyday life on the orbital outpost 250 miles above Earth, check out these revealing videos made by visiting astronauts over the years.

Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
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
NASA built the Roman Space Telescope to study dark matter, but it can also help protect Earth from killer asteroids
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope wasn't built to hunt asteroids, but it turns out to be great at it.
Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.

NASA is about to launch a telescope built to unlock some of the universe's biggest mysteries, and it turns out that same design could help protect Earth along the way.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 2026, with a primary mission focused on studying dark matter and dark energy - the invisible forces shaping galaxies and cosmic expansion. Researchers now say its unique design also makes it unexpectedly effective at spotting dangerous asteroids headed our way (via MIT Technology Review).

Read more
Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry
The AI boom is coming for the night sky
How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.

Read more
The first possible exomoon is here, and it makes our Moon look hilariously tiny
Scientists may have found the first exomoon, except this one is the size of Jupiter
This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

We have already discovered more than 6,000 planets outside of our immediate neighborhood. Yet, finding a moon orbiting one of those distant worlds has proved considerably harder. Astronomers may finally have something close to the real deal, but this particular object stretches the word “moon” almost beyond recognition.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers detected strong evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Further observations are still necessary to confirm the discovery, but it could become the first confidently detected natural satellite outside our solar system. There is still one tiny complication though. This moon is apparently massive.

Read more