Bad weather prevented the planned departure of the first all-private crew to the International Space Station on Saturday.
NASA, SpaceXand the company Axiom Space, which is backing the private Ax-1 mission, called off plans to undock a SpaceX Dragon carrying its four-man crew due to unacceptably high winds at splashdown sites off the coast of Florida. Mission managers had been aiming for a Saturday evening undocking before the delay.
"At the conclusion of a weather briefing ahead of today's planned undocking, NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX teams elected to wave off today's undocking attempt due to a diurnal low wind trough which has been causing marginally high winds at the splashdown sites," NASA officials wrote in an update Saturday. "The Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) crew is now targeting to undock from the International Space Station 8:55 p.m. EDT Sunday, April 24."
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Three of the four commercial astronauts who will be flying on the Ax-1 mission will be paying passengers on a short trip to the station. The crew includes commander Michael Lopez-Alegr, a former NASA astronaut, and paying passengers Larry Connor, an Americanentrepreneur, and Mark Pathy, a Canadianentrepreneur.
The three people are paying $55 million for the flight. During their trip, the Ax-1 astronauts have performed a series of experiments, helped mint NFTs on the station, conducted educational outreach activities and enjoyed the spaceflight experience.
The duration of the mission was extended because of weather concerns and will now last about 10 days, eight of them on the space station. The Dragon capsule is expected to splash down off the Florida coast around 1 p.m. if it can undock late Sunday. On Monday, April 25.
The next professional crew to visit the space station is going to have a bit of a traffic jam because of the delays.
The Crew-4 astronauts have been on hold since mid-April due to the delays with the NASA Artemis 1 Space Launch System fueling test and the Ax-1 mission, which is currently using the Crew-4 mission's docking port on the station.
After the Crew-4 launch of a third Dragon capsule, four other astronauts will return to Earth from the space station.
NASA will broadcast the undocking operations for the Ax-1 crew on Sunday at 6:30 p.m., beginning with hatch closing between the Dragon and station. The time is 2230 GMT. The coverage will start at 9:00 p.m. The sun rises at 0030 GMT. NASA TV will show both of those activities live.
The splashdown will be streamed live by Axiom Space. On Monday.
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