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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket and Crew Dragon stand at Launch Complex-39A in NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, prior to the AX-4 astronaut launch. | Credit: SpaceX
The crew of the next launch of Axiom Space in Houston to the space station is back on the board.
Axiom’s fourth astronaut mission (AX-4) to the International Space Station (ISS) has a new launch date. The crew of four will lift a SpaceX crew Dragon SpaceCraft on top of a Falcon 9 -Raket no earlier than 25 June, NASA announced Monday evening (23 June).
Launch is planned for 2:31 AM EDT (0631 GMT) from Launch Complex-39A, in Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. The launch was delayed indefinitely last week due to a leak that was detected on board the ISS. No update was given about that leak in the announcement of NASA of the new launch date.
The leak in the Zvezda module of the station is not new, but a change in the pressure data that the severity of the leak measures, NASA and Axiom led to postpone the AX-4 launch until security could be ensured.
The AX-4 crew consists of former NASA Astronaut and Axiom’s director of Human SpaceFlight Peggy Whitson. Whitson will serve as a mission commander of Shubhanshu Shukla from India, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu, from Hungary. All three will be the first astronauts of their respectve countries to launch on a mission to the ISS.
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The mission is expected to take two weeks. While on board the track laboratory, the AX-4 crew will perform more science experiments and voice (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) outreach events than any earlier axiom mission-more than 60 in total.
If everything stays on schedule with the early morning launch on Wednesday, the crew’s Dragon SpaceCraft is planned to launch with the ISS at around 7 am Edt (1100 GMT) Thursday 26 June. A live stream of the launch and rendezvous will be lived on Space.com.
