SpaceX Says Crew Dragon's Launch To ISS Delayed Due To Falcon 9's Engine Issue

The launch of Crew Dragon, which was earlier planned to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 31, has been postponed till November 14 because SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket's engines were found to be defective during the launch of the US new GPS satellite, SpaceX's Vice President Hans Koenigsmann said on Thursday at a press conference

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2020) The launch of Crew Dragon, which was earlier planned to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 31, has been postponed till November 14 because SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket's engines were found to be defective during the launch of the US new GPS satellite, SpaceX's Vice President Hans Koenigsmann said on Thursday at a press conference.

"It was caused by an early start behavior of two on the engines, in this case it was the engine one and engine two.

.. We looked at the data and saw that the two engines attempted to start earlier and the order to abort prevented... a possible hard start," Koenigsmann said.

He added that the company deposed the engines and sent them to Texas for testing to replicate the case and perform additional inspections if needed. The company announced that it would replace the faulty engines to carry four astronauts to the ISS.

The SpaceX Merlin engines, which are mounted on Falcon 9 rockets, were first designed in 2006 and can be reused.