NASA and SpaceX are finally ready to set their crew launch on the targeted date of November 14th. Earlier, this launch was set for October 31, which resulted in a sudden abort at the last time. This was due to a controlling debug that occurred at the last time, leading to the cancellation of the launch of Falcon 9.
Elon Musk had commented on the breakdown saying,
“unexpected pressure rise in the turbomachinery gas generator,”
Meanwhile, the engineers had been trying to resolve the issue by removing the engineers from the Falcon 9 Rocket to investigate further in McGregor, Texas. The Merlin engines are now to be replaced and a separate engine as well.
If the mission goes well, reports say that the Crew Dragon, aided by 4 mission passengers will automated linkup with the International Space Station’s Harmony module around 4:15 a.m. EST (0915 GMT) on Nov. 15, about eight-and-a-half after launch.
The operational Crew Dragon flight will include, NASA commander Mike Hopkins, spacecraft pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi – of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Space station commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Russian flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will further join Mike Hopkins on the International research outpost conducting a 64-days Crew Dragon flight testing.
Speaking on this, NASA has released a statement:
“The Crew-1 mission will launch a few days after the Nov. 10 scheduled launch of NASA’s Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, following a thorough review of launch vehicle performance.”
The Crew 1 mission has undergone several delays starting from its first launch date set around August, shifting consecutively from September, October to finally November. After the latest hardware testing and investigation, following the problem that occurred in October, this is the fourth time that it will set its launch and hope this time it will be a successful endeavor by the team.
