Clouds force SpaceX to scrub joint astronaut launch
An international team of four astronauts postponed his launch from Florida to the International Space Station in bad weather and delayed a rare task of NASA’s acting chief for a meeting with a rare meeting of high -level Russian space officials in the city.
Astronaut crew – two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a Japanese astronaut – on the Falcon 9 rocket in the Kennedy Space Center of NASA, riding the dragon capsule of SpaceX on Thursday and left immediately after local time.
However, about a minute before the launch, the SpaceX task controllers called on a waist in the countdown due to stormy clouds approaching the launch ramp.
NASA officials, astronauts at least six -month mission in ISS will be moved to Friday, he said. Russian Space Agency Roscosmos President Dmitry Bakanov plans to meet the acting NASA manager Sean Duffy, who is also the chairman of the US Department of Transport, at Florida, Cape Canaveral this month.
This will mark an important moment for the new NASA manager, emphasizing the first face -to -face meeting between the US and Russian space agency chiefs since 2018 and that it only serves in acting capacity.
In the attempt called crew-11, NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonautut Olegut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui. They will replace the crew-10 crew in ISS on August 6th.
The US-Russia’s tensions on the war in Ukraine continued to share astronaut flights and cooperate in ISS, while this is an important scientific diplomacy totem to protect the talents of the two spacepower.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, Ministerov and DUFFY are expected to discuss the expansion of the astronaut seat change agreement of the two countries to eliminate Russian Soyuz capsules and ISS in exchange for Russian astronauts flying on US capsules of US astronauts.
Although normal long-term Iss tasks are six months, the crew-11 task may be the first of many eight-month-old efforts to align US task programs with Russia.
The mission will be the first space flight for Cardman, who was chosen as NASA astronaut in 2017 and Platonov, a trained engineer for air traffic management and air traffic management, selected as a cosmonaut in 2018.
“We know it’s in good hands,” Sergei Krikalev, a Roscosmos Human Space Aircraft Chief and a senior cosmonaut at a press conference on Wednesday. He said.
