Thomas Baskett’s return to Earth was delayed by a few days

Joe Skipper / Reuters

Space – A minor ISS update for Thomas Baskett. NASA and SpaceX have postponed the launch of four new astronauts from Sunday, October 31 to Wednesday, November 3. International Space Station (So ​​change French And his colleagues) in order to avoid “a major storm system,” the U.S. agency said Saturday.

The crew of this “Crew-3” mission was scheduled to leave the capsule on Sunday. Team Dragon The so-called “tolerance” is constant A Falcon 9 rocket, From the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch will finally take place on Wednesday at 1:10 am local time (or 6:10 am in France), and the crew-3 will arrive at the space station at about 11 pm the same evening (i.e. 4 am in Paris). Wednesday to Thursday night. ) ”, NASA said.

They will then go on a “brief handover” with the astronauts who flew to the station as part of the agency’s mission, SpaceX Crew-2. Thomas Baskett, Has been in the ISS since April, he added.

Two tours in the program for new astronauts

SpaceX said on its website on Thursday, November 4, that “relief will be available” if Wednesday’s re-launch becomes impossible. Crew-3, the mission to send SpaceX’s third regular manpower on behalf of NASA, has signed a multi-billion dollar contract. Elon Musk’s private company By the U.S. agency after completing its own space shuttle program in 2011.

The Crew-3 team will spend six months in orbit and carry out research aimed at facilitating future long-range space exploration or bringing useful knowledge to Earth.

This work involves experimenting with growing plants in space without soil or other growth substrate. The other aims to produce optical fibers in microgravity, which, according to research already done, will deliver higher quality than those produced in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Crew-3 astronauts will also conduct astronauts to complete the rearrangement of the ISS’s solar panels and hosts. Two excursions: The Japanese were brought in by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft later this year, and then passengers from the Space-X Axiom mission scheduled for February 2022.

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