Crew-6 launch has been canceled two minutes and thirty seconds before liftoff

This Monday the Crew-6 mission was scheduled to take off towards the International Space Station (ISS). The flight, designed to carry four astronauts from different space agencies, has been canceled two minutes and thirty seconds before launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. But what exactly happened so that this scientific mission promoted by NASA and SpaceX had to be canceled so suddenly?

Those responsible for the mission argue that the flight has been canceled due to a technical problem. Specifically, for a fault in the ground systems. At the moment, everything indicates that both the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon Endevour capsule are in good condition. «The mission teams decide withdraw to investigate a problem that prevented the data from confirming a full load of the engines ignition source«, highlights the technical team in a statement issued by NASA.

It is not the first time that the launch of this mission has been postponed for a technical problem. Crew-6’s first takeoff attempt was to take place on Sunday, February 26, but during the final round of checks, it was decided to postpone the mission one day to perform additional thermal analysis of the panels of the Dragon capsule and to check again the helium containers of the Falcon 9 rocket. This type of practice is common in space missions since, according to experts, these flights cannot start engines without first having the guarantee of that everything is working perfectly.

Those responsible for the mission They trust that the technical failures detected this Monday can be solved shortly. The next launch window for this mission could open tomorrow at 1:22 a.m. Florida (6:22 a.m. Spanish peninsular time) although, according to weather forecasts, it seems that there will not be favorable weather for takeoff by then. The next launch opportunity would be Thursday, March 2 at 12:34 p.m. (6:34 p.m. Spanish peninsular time).

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The Crew-6 mission has been designed to transport four astronauts to the International Space Station. They are Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, from NASA, Sultan Alneyadi, from the United Arab Emirates space agency, and Andrey Fedyaev, from Russia’s Roscosmos. This team plans to a six month stay in the space facilities during which more than 200 scientific experiments in microgravity conditions.

As confirmed by NASA, the four astronauts have already left the spacecraft that were scheduled to take off today and have been transferred to their respective terrestrial accommodations. «We should be proud of NASA’s dedication to keep the crew of this mission safe«, has declared the administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson. «Human spaceflight is an inherently risky endeavor and, as always, we’ll fly when we’re ready«, stressed the spokesman for the space agency after the failed takeoff on Monday.