BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – SpaceX released a new potential launch date for its Crew 9 mission.
To ensure everything is ready for takeoff, NASA and SpaceX announced in a news release Thursday that the new launch date is set for Sept. 25 at 2:28 p.m. Originally, NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said the launch would tentatively take place no earlier than Aug. 18. at a news conference in July.
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In the case of further delays, additional launch opportunities are available Thursday, Sept. 26 through Saturday, Sept. 28. Currently, weather forecasts for the set launch day show a 60% chance of rain in Cape Canaveral.
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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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