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NASA, SpaceX postpone launch date of Crew-9 mission to space station due to Tropical Storm Helene

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Published  September 24, 2024 5:00pm EDT
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FOX 35 Orlando

Brevard County update on Tropical Storm Helene

Brevard County provided an update on its preparations ahead of Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to become a major hurricane before making landfall Thursday over Florida.

ORLANDO, Fla. - NASA and SpaceX have postponed the launch of the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station due to Tropical Storm Helene.

The launch, which had already been delayed, was planned for Thursday. The new launch date and time are no earlier than 1:17 p.m. ET, Saturday, Sept. 28, from Space Launch Complex 40 due to tropical storm conditions in the area.

"Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast," NASA wrote on its commercial crew blog site.

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Meet the NASA/Space X Crew-9 crew

NASA astronaut Nick Hague, the mission’s commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, a mission specialist, are currently in isolation as part of a pre-flight quarantine to avoid any illness before joining the Expedition 72 crew aboard the space station.

This will mark Hague’s third launch and second mission to the station, while Gorbunov will make his first trip to space.

As part of Crew-9, Hague and Gorbunov will join NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been aboard the space station since June after arriving on the Starliner spacecraft.

The two astronauts arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida this past weekend, where have remained in quarantine at the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building until launch.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague (left) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov pose for portraits in their flight suits at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

Crew-9 is the ninth crew rotation mission to the space station with SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The crew is set to spend about five months on the orbiting laboratory, conducting spacewalks, research, and experiments before returning to Earth in February 2025 with Williams and Wilmore.

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