The Crew-13 flight to the Space Station for a crew change out had been scheduled for Wednesday, September 12, but on Saturday, August 29, it was announced that an oxidizer leak in Dragon’s propulsion system had been detected during standard prelaunch spacecraft processing. NASA and SpaceX quickly announced the launch date was being cancelled while the system is undergoing troubleshooting.
"Joint NASA and SpaceX teams are performing additional tests and data review and will complete any necessary rework prior to launch," NASA officials wrote in an update on Saturday. "A new target date will be announced once available."
The mission name, of course, doesn't mean the 13th crew swap in the life of the ISS; it's just the 13th crew that SpaceX has lifted to the ISS since they began flying the crew dragon spacecraft for NASA.
The four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission to the International Space
Station display their mission plaque inside a training mockup of a space
station module. From left: Commander Jessica Watkins and Pilot Luke Delaney,
both from NASA, and Mission Specialists Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space
Agency and Sergey Teteryatnikov of Roscosmos. (Image credit: NASA/Morgan
Gridley)
"We expect a very busy mission with lots of station maintenance, both internal and external, with a few EVAs [extravehicular activities, or spacewalks] on the docket," Watkins said during an Aug. 3 press conference.
There will also be "visiting vehicle capture and stowage operations, lots of science — very interesting science experiments that will be flying with us as well — and plenty of outreach," she added.
The launch will be from SLC-40 (usually just called "slick 40") on the Space Force Station side of Cape Canaveral rather than LC-39 on the Kennedy Space Center side. The first Crew Dragon missions were from LC-39 but SpaceX modernized the SLC-40 hardware to accommodate manned flights. The first crewed flight from SLC-40 was in September of 2024, while the first crewed Dragon launch was the May 2020 first flight of the spacecraft.
Even SpaceX can't be perfect 100% of the time. But they will correct the problem far quicker than anyone else.
ReplyDeleteAs I was writing I was thinking, "they found it Saturday and isn't fixed yet?" Must be paperwork, since it is for crewed flight, I just imagine the NASA requirements probably are huge stacks of paper.
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