Fifth SpaceX Launch Forced To Be Delayed Because One Crew Is Sick

JAKARTA - NASA announced Monday, November 1, a rare health-related delay in the launch of the SpaceX rockets of four astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the second mission delay in a week, citing an unspecified medical problem with one of the crew.

NASA said the matter was "not a medical emergency and unrelated to COVID-19," but the space agency declined to elaborate on the nature of the problem or say which astronauts were involved in the medical issue.

The launch, which was originally scheduled for Sunday October 31, had to be postponed to Wednesday November 3 due to unfavorable weather conditions, has now been rescheduled for Saturday night November 6, NASA sources said.

The last time NASA delayed a scheduled launch due to medical problems involving the crew was for a Space Shuttle Atlantis flight in 1990, when mission commander John Creighton fell ill. The countdown was suspended for three days until he was allowed to fly, according to NASA. The delay was followed by two additional weather-related delays.

LAUNCH UPDATE: @NASA's @SpaceX #Crew3 mission is now targeted to launch no earlier than 11:36pm ET on Saturday, Nov. 6 due to a minor medical issue involving one of its crew members. More details: https://t.co/Wwjb9U8G9G pic.twitter.com/PCiUhYD2bN

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) November 1, 2021

The SpaceX-built vehicle that will fly this weekend, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, will now lift off at 11:36 p.m. on Saturday (0336 GMT Sunday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

If all goes well, three US astronauts and a European Space Agency (ESA) crew will arrive 22 hours later and dock at the space station 250 miles (400 km) above Earth to begin a six-month science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. .

For now, the four crew members will remain in routine quarantine at the Cape as they continue preparations for launch, NASA sources said.

Joining the mission are three NASA astronauts — flight commander Raja Chari, 44, mission pilot Tom Marshburn, 61, and mission specialist Kayla Barron, 34 — and a German astronaut Matthias Maurer, 51, an ESA mission specialist.

Chari, a U.S. Air Force test and jet fighter pilot, Barron, a U.S. Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer, and Maurer, a materials science engineer, all made their debut space flight aboard the Dragon vehicle, dubbed the Endurance.

Marshburn, a physician and former NASA flight surgeon, is the crew's most experienced astronaut, having recorded two previous space flights and four spacewalks.

Saturday's takeoff, if successful, would count as the fifth human-to-space flight SpaceX has accomplished to date, following its maiden launch in September on the space tourism service that sent the first all-civilian crew into Earth orbit.

The latest mission will mark the fourth NASA crew to have flown to the space station with SpaceX in 17 months, establishing a public-private partnership with the rocket company formed in 2002 by Musk, the founder of electric maker Tesla Inc.