KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – A pair of space travelers will have to wait a little longer for their trip to the International Space Station.
Due to Tropical Storm Helene, NASA and SpaceX have adjusted the next launch opportunity for the Crew-9 mission to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 from Launch Complex 40.
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The latest forecast shows Helene growing into a major Category 3 hurricane within the next 48 hours. Although the storm is expected to impact Florida’s Gulf Coast, NASA says that due to its size, the agency is expecting high winds and heavy rain around the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s East Coast.
The date change allows for teams to complete a rehearsal of launch day activities on Tuesday with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, which rolled to Space Launch Complex-40 earlier in the day. Once the rehearsal is complete, teams will move the rocket back to the hangar ahead of potential storm activity.
Crew-9′s Nick Hague and Alex Gorbunov arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday ahead of the launch. NASA had cut two astronauts from the mission in order to return two stuck Starliner astronauts. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were left behind on the Space Station as Boeing’s troubled capsule returned to Earth earlier this month.
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