The International Space Station recently experienced an issue that stalled a few issues. Now, two crewed missions are expected to resume with slight changes in the schedule and mode of achieving these missions.
Crewed Missions to the ISS Resumed
According to Space News, the International Space Station previously experienced technical issues with one of them including a coolant leak on the Soyuz. During a recent briefing on July 25, NASA officials announced how the Crew-7 mission is being planned to launch on August 17.
The Crew-7 mission would make its way to the ISS and would be accomplished on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Initially, the mission was scheduled for August 15, but it was pushed back to give way to changes regarding the launch.
The change would move the Launch Complex 39A to Falcon 9 after it was previously set for Falcon Heavy. During the briefing, the Falcon Heavy's launch was supposed to happen on July 26 but was delayed due to a technical issue.
The Falcon Heavy launch was supposed to carry the Jupiter-3 communications satellite; but after a two-day delay, it successfully launched on July 28. No additional information has been given by NASA nor SpaceX regarding whether the Crew-7 would further be delayed past the announced point.
NASA describes the Crew-7, or the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, as having a four-person crew and will be the seventh crew rotation mission to the ISS with the help of SpaceX. Sci Tech Daily reports that the four-person crew will be responsible for conducting critical research.
Crew-7 Preparations
Steve Stitch, the commercial crew program manager at NASA, said that the next window for the launch of the Crew-7, if it didn't push through on August 18, would be on August 21. This is due to the operations of the Progress cargo spacecraft at the station.
SpaceX's Benji Reed, the company's senior director for human spaceflight programs, assured that Crew-7 preparations were going well. He highlighted how CRS-28, a previous cargo Dragon mission, experienced certain problems with the spacecraft's propulsion systems isolation values.
As noted by Space, the CRS-28 left the space station on June 29 and is expected to reach Florida on June 30.
These valves were stuck open but were to be used should there be a thruster leak despite not being technically needed. These valves were corroded and remained open as Reed guarantees that the company is proactively inspecting all Dragon vehicles' isolation valves.
Space News also reports that Reeds said that the Crew-6 vehicle's valves were also working as normal. The senior director expressed that they were confident in the Crew-6 and Crew-7 vehicles were fine and that the latter was about to fly.
Mission Participants
Jasmin Moghbeli, a NASA astronaut, will be in command of the Crew-7 with Andreas Mogensen, an astronaut from the European Space Agency, will be the pilot of the mission. Other professionals joining the mission include Satoshi Furukawa from JAXA, the Japanese space agency, and Russia's Space Space Corporation Roscosmos' Konstantin Borisov.
Joel Montalbano, the program manager of NASA ISS, said that the participants would be on the station for 190 days. On September 15, the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft is expected to follow with another set of participants.
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