BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – SpaceX has released a new potential launch date for its Crew 9 mission.
Crew 9 will take off no earlier than Thursday, Sept. 26, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program said Wednesday on social media.
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A news release published last week had announced the launch would occur at 2:28 p.m. Sept. 25, but an exact time for the new launch date has yet to be confirmed as work continues for prelaunch operations, hardware processing and weather monitoring, according to the latest post. NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said in July that the launch would tentatively take place no earlier than Aug. 18, and last week’s news release — like Wednesday’s update — stated the time was being taken to ensure everything was ready for takeoff.
In the case of further delays, additional launch opportunities are available Friday, Sept. 27, and Saturday, Sept. 28, the post states, adding crew arrival will take place Saturday, Sept. 21.
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Crew 9 will be SpaceX’s ninth crew rotation mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. This launch will mark the first time a human spaceflight mission will take off from the Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This announcement follows the successful SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch that sent five communications satellites into orbit on Sept. 12.
Crew 9 members are already prepping for the launch. NASA astronaut commander Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will spend the next two weeks in quarantine at the Johnson Space Center in Houston until Sept. 20, when they will go to Kennedy Space Center.
Once in space, Hague and Gorbunov will join the crew onboard the International Space Station, including astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been on the space station since June as part of the Boeing Starliner mission.
SpaceX modified this mission from a four-person crew to a two-person crew, so that the Dragon capsule can bring Wilmore and Williams home when it returns to Earth.
Once in orbit, the crew will spend approximately five months at the orbiting laboratory and return in Feb. 2025.
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