SpaceX Postpones Launch Of Four More Astronauts to Space Station Due To Northeastern Storm
HAWTHORNE (CBSLA/CNS) - SpaceX postponed the launch of four more NASA astronauts to the International Space Station due to inclement weather.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was originally scheduled to depart from Kennedy Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 11:21 p.m. pacific time on Saturday.
But due to a powerful storm in the Northeast that is causing strong winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean, the Hawthorne based company is now targeting a backup launch window, which opens Tuesday at 10:10 p.m. California time.
Flying aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance will be NASA astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander; Tom Marshburn, pilot; and Kayla Barron, mission specialist. Also aboard will be European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, also a mission specialist.
The astronauts have been dubbed Crew-3, as part of SpaceX's third official manned flight to the space station. They will be greeted upon arrival by the four-member crew of the last manned SpaceX flight, Crew-2, who have been aboard the station since April.
That crew -- NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and
European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet -- are expected to return to Earth in early November aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour.
McArthur, who grew up in Northern California, is a UCLA graduate in aerospace engineering, and she earned a doctorate in oceanography at UC San Diego, where she was a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In November 2020, SpaceX sent its first official crew to the space station in a separate Dragon spacecraft, dubbed Resilience.
SpaceX's first manned mission to the space station occurred last summer with the launch of two astronauts from Cape Canaveral in the Endeavour capsule, a flight that marked the first manned mission to launch from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired. But that trip was technically dubbed a demonstration flight to test the capabilities of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
