SpaceX postpones launch to ISS SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is placed at the head of a Falcon 9 rocket in the company's hangar at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Posted: Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:25 pm By JOSEPH ABBOTT jabbott@wacotrib.com SpaceX announced Thursday that Sunday morning's planned cargo launch to the International Space Station has been postponed to no earlier than March 30. From company spokeswoman Emily Shanklin: To ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance and allow additional time to resolve remaining open items, SpaceX is now targeting March 30th for the CRS-3 launch, with April 2nd as a back-up. These represent the earliest available launch opportunities given existing schedules, and are currently pending approval with the Range.
Both Falcon 9 and Dragon are in good health; given the critical payloads on board and significant upgrades to Dragon, the additional time will ensure SpaceX does everything possible on the ground to prepare for a successful launch. The Eastern Range, with which approval is pending, is the U.S. Air Force network of support systems for Cape Canaveral launches. One thing this means is that the Dragon should now be arriving to a full house, with three replacement ISS crew members set to launch March 25 to join the three already on the station. UPDATE, 9 PM: Bill Harwood at CBS News/SpaceflightNow reports that SpaceX personnel found unspecified contaminants in the Dragon's unpressurized "trunk" (the straight cylindrical bit underneath the "gumdrop" main section in the photo above) and sought extra time to evaluate and fix the problem. (Note that the photo above, of Dragon being mated to the Falcon 9 second stage, was released by SpaceX before the postponement was announced; it would be a reasonable guess that the contamination was noticed during this process.)
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