NASA Delaying ISS Crew 7 Takeoff By Two Days For Early Comsat Launch - Officials

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th July, 2023) NASA and SpaceX are delaying the launch of the next crew to the International Space Station (ISS) in a dragon spacecraft by two days until August 17 because of the need to reconfigure its launch pad after an earlier unmanned liftoff with a heavy booster, senior agency officials told a press conference on Tuesday.

"We are going to adjust the launch date a few days to the right," NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stitch told reporters. "We will adjust the launch date to turn the pad around after our Falcon 9 Heavy Launch Vehicle."

The previous scheduled launch date announced by NASA was August 15.

The Falcon 9 Heavy will be carrying the EchoStar Jupiter 3 communications satellite into orbit.

The Falcon 9 heavy booster, also built by SpaceX, is scheduled to launch an Echo Star mission into orbit on Wednesday, July 26 off Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida. It is the same launch pad that the ISS SpaceX Dragon manned mission to the ISS will take off from.

The SpaceX Crew 7 mission carrying Russian, Japanese and European members is now scheduled to dock at the ISS at 2:45 am Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on Friday morning, Stitch added.