SpaceX’s next astronaut mission faces another delay. The target launch date for SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission, its first fully operational crewed mission to space, has been pushed back to no earlier than 23 October. The mission, which is set to launch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, won’t lift off until at least late October to accommodate spacecraft traffic for the upcoming Soyuz crew rotation and to best meet the needs of the International Space Station.
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Crew-1 will carry four astronauts to and from the space station - NASA astronauts commander Michael Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut mission specialist Soichi Noguchi. With this new timeline, Crew-1 will launch after NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov arrive at the space station aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-17 craft. Crew-1’s liftoff will also follow the departure of NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner from the station.