Space travel
New ISS crew has to postpone launch into space
Alexander Grebenkin (lr), Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Matthew Dominick. photo
© Richard Tribou/TNS via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, their colleague Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin were actually supposed to fly to the ISS. But the launch had to be postponed.
The start of a new crew to the International Space Station, which was actually planned for Sunday morning German time ISS has been postponed by one day. Due to the weather conditions, it will now take place on Monday morning at 4:53 a.m. (CET), as the US space agency Nasa announced via the online platform X.
The “Crew-8” consisting of three Americans and one Russian is to be brought to the ISS from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida on board a “Crew Dragon” capsule from the private space company SpaceX owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk. This would be the repeated time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine that astronauts from both countries would fly into space together, despite the resulting immense tensions between the USA and Russia
Nasa astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, their colleague Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin are expected to conduct research on the ISS for around six months. It will be the first space flight for Epps, Dominick and Grebenkin; Barratt has already visited the ISS twice before. There is currently a seven-person crew on board the space station.