NASA, SpaceX’s CRS-25 Mission Postponed Due to Propellant Issue; Flight Engineers Prepare for New Target Launch Date

NASA recently announced it is delaying a cargo flight to the International Space Station out of a bunch of warnings over SpaceX Dragon potentially breathing fire from the wrong place.

A CNET report said the American space agency had hoped to launch the capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket on Friday.

However, as a propellant was being loaded into the Draco thruster system of the Dragon ahead of time, "elevated vapor readings of MMH" or mono-methyl hydrazine were detected, NASA said in a late-Monday statement.

This means that sensors detected the slightest hint of a possible fuel leak, and mission control shut everything down.

New Target Launch Date

The agency also said that the elevated readings' exact source is identified and the cause is determined, the joint teams from SpaceX and NASA will identify and announce a new target for the launch date.

On Tuesday, NASA mission control based in Houston could be heard telling astronauts about the new date for the mission's launch. The said new date for the mission called CRS-25 is no sooner than June 28.

Once it finally makes it to orbit, the spacecraft will be carrying equipment, supply, and science experiments, including studying aging and immunity, investigating concrete substitutes in microgravity, and other experiments.

Preparations for Docking Procedures

While awaiting the announcement regarding the new target date, flight engineers Jessika Watkins and Samantha Cristoforetti from NASA and European Space Agency are getting up "to speed up with the Dragon craft's rendezvous" and docking procedures, a statement from the agency specified.

Both trained on a computer to prepare for their tasks when they monitored the automated arrival and docking of the dragon.

Eye exams were also scheduled, with NASA Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren taking charge as today's Crew Medical Officer.

He specifically operated medical imaging gear using standard optical coherence tomography techniques and scanned the eyes and retinas of Cristofetti and Bob Hines, another NASA Flight Engineer.

The Dragon Spacecraft

As described on the SpaceX website, the Dragon spacecraft can accommodate a maximum of seven passengers to and from Earth orbit and beyond.

It is the only spacecraft presently flying capable of returning substantial amounts of cargo to Earth and is the first private spacecraft to take human beings to the ISS.

This spacecraft is equipped with a pair of drogue parachutes to stabilize the spacecraft after reentry and four main parachutes to decelerate further before landing.

In 2020, SpaceX returned the ability of the United States to fly NASA astronauts to and from the ISS on American vehicles for the first time since 2011,

On top of flying astronauts to space for NASA, the Dragon spacecraft of SpaceX can carry commercial astronauts to Earth orbit, the ISS, and beyond.

A report about the postponement of SpaceX's flight to ISS is shown on France 24 English's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on the SpaceX mission on Science Times.