SpaceX Delays Launch One Day, Russia Rolls Out New Cargo Rocket

SpaceX Delays Launch One Day, Russia Rolls Out New Cargo Rocket

Russia's Progress 74 cargo rocket
Russia’s Progress 74 cargo rocket rolls out its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: Energia

The Expedition 61 crew will wait an extra day for the arrival of the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the Progress 74 (74P) cargo craft from Roscosmos rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

High upper level winds forced SpaceX to scrub today’s launch of its 19th Dragon resupply ship aboard a Falcon 9 rocket today. Mission personnel are now targeting a launch less than 24 hours later on Thursday at 12:29 p.m. EST from Florida.

Commander Luca Parmitano and Flight Engineer Andrew Morgan will capture Dragon with the Canadarm2 robotic arm when it arrives Sunday at approximately 6 a.m. Dragon will deliver nearly three tons of cargo including new experiments such as the Confined Combustion study, Japan’s Hyperspectral Imager Suite (HISUI) and the AzTechSat-1 cubesat developed by Mexican students.

The duo along with NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Christina Koch had a light-duty day today. The quartet focused on housecleaning duties in the station’s U.S. segment following a busy period of spacewalks and space biology research.

The 74P resupply rocket from Russia is now standing vertical at the launch site in Kazakhstan having rolled out early Wednesday morning from its processing facility. It will blast off Friday at 4:34 a.m. loaded with new station hardware and crew supplies. Cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka will monitor its arrival on Monday when the 74P automatically docks to the Pirs docking compartment on Monday at 5:38 a.m.

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Mark Garcia

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Crew Training for Two New Cargo Missions Launching This Week

Crew Training for Two New Cargo Missions Launching This Week

Astronaut Luca Parmitano
Astronaut Luca Parmitano carries the new thermal pump system that was installed on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) during the third spacewalk to upgrade the AMS.

The Expedition 61 crew aboard the International Space Station is focusing on a pair of upcoming cargo deliveries after completing a spacewalk on Monday.

SpaceX will launch its 19th Dragon resupply ship aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 12:51 p.m. EST from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dragon is delivering nearly three tons of cargo to the orbiting lab including new science hardware such as the Confined Combustion study, Japan’s Hyperspectral Imager Suite (HISUI) and the AzTechSat-1 cubesat developed by Mexican students.

Commander Luca Parmitano and Flight Engineer Andrew Morgan are training to capture Dragon with the Canadarm2 robotic arm when it arrives Saturday at 5:58 a.m. Robotics controllers will take command of the Canadarm2 and then install Dragon to the Harmony module’s Earth-facing port.

Parmitano and Morgan wrapped up a spacewalk on Monday having replaced a thermal pump system on the station’s cosmic particle detector. They joined fellow astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch at the end of the day Tuesday with a call to Mission Control about their spacewalk experience.

The space station is also preparing for the arrival of Russia’s Progress 74 (74P) cargo craft set for launch on Friday at 4:34 a.m. The 74P will take a three-day trip to the station and dock Monday Dec. 9 at 5:38 a.m. Cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka checked out the tele-robotically operated rendezvous unit (TORU) today in the unlikely event they would need to remotely maneuver the 74P to a docking.

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Mark Garcia

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