Skip to main content

SpaceX Crew-5 mission prep impacted by approaching storm

Tropical Storm Ian is creating challenges for NASA mission planners overseeing launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The approaching tropical storm, which forecasters say could become a hurricane on Monday, has already forced the space agency to ditch a potential launch opportunity for its next-generation SLS rocket on Tuesday, September 27. It’s now trying to establish whether the enormous rocket needs to be rolled off the launchpad and back into the Vehicle Assembly Building four miles away to protect it from the incoming wind and rain.

Recommended Videos

On top of that, Storm Ian has also interrupted preparations for SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission to the space station. The troubling weather forecast has prompted the mission team to postpone plans to bring the crew to the Kennedy Space Center on Monday, September 26.

With NASA yet to decide a new date for their arrival, its current target launch date of Monday, October 3, could slip.

“NASA and SpaceX’s Crew-5 astronaut arrival to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been delayed as mission teams monitor Tropical Storm Ian,” NASA said in a tweet, adding that a new arrival date will be announced in the coming days.

Update: @NASA’s @SpaceX Crew-5 astronaut arrival to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been delayed as mission teams monitor Tropical Storm Ian. A new crew arrival date will be set in the coming days.

The Flight Readiness Review teleconference remains on Sept.26. https://t.co/eU9FY7QZcL

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) September 26, 2022

As part of Crew-5, NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, together with Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Anna Kikina of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, will spend about six months aboard the orbital outpost, working on science and technology demonstrations as well as performing maintenance and upgrade activities.

For Mann, Cassada, and Kikina, this will be their first ride to space. Wakata, meanwhile, has already been on four orbital missions. The first took place in 1996, while the most recent voyage was in 2013. The Japanese astronaut has three Space Shuttle rides under his belt and one Soyuz trip, and, like his three crewmates, will be traveling aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule for the very first time.

The Crew-5 mission will be SpaceX’s eighth crewed flight since the first one in the summer of 2020. The Crew-5 mission is the seventh to the space station. The other crewed flight involved the first-ever all-civilian mission that orbited Earth for several days without docking at the ISS.

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)…
The best space imagery from Don Pettit’s incredible 7-month mission
The Betsiboka River estuary in Madagascar.

Photographer extraordinaire Don Pettit is about to return to Earth following a seven-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

During his time in orbit some 250 miles above Earth, Pettit has been sharing breathtaking photos and videos of Earth and beyond, featuring everything from star trails and aurora to rocket launches and cityscapes.

Read more
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just set a new record
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching in April 2025.

Following a mission early on Monday, the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket entered the record books by becoming the first one to launch and land 27 times.

The Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at midnight on Monday, April 14, in a mission that successfully deployed 27 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.

Read more
Trippy time-lapse shows Starlink satellites streak light across space
Starlink satellites as seen from the space station.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit has shared a new time-lapse video showing some of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites streaking across space.

Other lines of light appearing in the 18-second clip captured from the International Space Station (ISS) include city lights on Earth 250 miles below, and those of distant stars.

Read more