After all, the upcoming SpaceX payload mission to the International Space Station will not be launched this week.
The robotic flight, called CRS-25, will send one SpaceX Dragon’s capsule to the laboratory orbiting at the top a Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The takeoff was scheduled for Friday (June 10), but that won’t happen.
“NASA and SpaceX are withdrawing this week’s launch of Falcon 9 from the CRS-25 payload mission to International Space Station“NASA and SpaceX officials met today to discuss a problem identified over the weekend and the best way,” NASA officials wrote in an emailed statement this afternoon (June 6). to follow “.
The SpaceX Dragon: The first private spacecraft to reach the space station
This problem involves hydrazine, the propellant used by Dragon’s Draco propellants. While feeding Dragon, technicians measured high readings of hydrazine vapor in a part of the Draco system, NASA’s statement said.
“The propellant and oxidizer have been discharged from this region to support further inspections and testing,” the statement added. “Once the exact source of the high readings is identified and the cause is determined, the joint NASA and SpaceX teams will determine and announce a new release date.”
As its name suggests, the CRS-25 will be the 25th robotic space launch that SpaceX will launch on the International Space Station for NASA. The mission will be the third for this particular Dragon, which was also launched on cargo laps in orbit in December 2020 and August 2021.
A SpaceX dragon is already docked in the orbiting lab: the capsule called Freedom, which brought four astronauts to the station in late April for a six-month stay. SpaceX has a separate contract with NASA’s commercial crew program to conduct these astronaut missions and has already launched five so far, with a manned demonstration flight in May 2020.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there (opens in new tab) “(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or activated Facebook (opens in a new tab).