Technical Constraints, SpaceX Plans To Bring NASA Astronauts To The ISS Forced To Delay

Roket SpaceX Crew Dragon-1 (Twitter @SpaceX)

JAKARTA - NASA was forced to postpone its astronaut departure schedule to the international space station (ISS). Initially, NASA's SpaceX rocket launch would be carried out on April 20 and had to be delayed until April 22, 2021.

Reporting from Reuters, SpaceX was again tasked with sending NASA astronauts to the ISS at the end of March. However, the private company owned by Elon Musk, found a slight problem with the ISS orbital path that caused the launch schedule to be postponed.

"This is driven by an orbital mechanism, which will keep astronauts' needs from reaching the space station, so it must be adjusted based on the minimum possible flight time," said NASA spokesman Dan Huot.

NASA's @SpaceX Crew-2 mission is now targeted for no earlier than April 22. This mission will be the second crew rotation flight with astronauts on the Crew Dragon & the first launch with two international partners as part of the Commercial Crew Program: https: //t.co/8f6xURo3uJ pic.twitter.com/rZP2hpxpeQ

- NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) March 5, 2021

This flight marks the second full space station crew rotation mission launched aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 spacecraft using the Crew Dragon capsule that will be brought into orbit.

The SpaceX Crew-2 mission will consist of four members consisting of two NASA astronauts, mission commander Shane Kimbrough and pilot Megan McArthur, along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and fellow mission specialist Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency.

On arrival at the ISS, they will join forces with four astronauts from SpaceX Crew-1, who arrived since last November, to carry Russian cosmonauts to an outpost orbiting the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. The plan is for the mission to be carried out over the next six months, while Crew-1 will return to Earth in early May.

This is the third time NASA has used a private rocket for astronaut rotational travel to the ISS. The move also marks NASA's first human orbital mission, since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.