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ORLANDO, Fla., April 21 (UPI) — The A-1 astronauts are set to return to Earth on Sunday, following an extended stay in space, NASA has announced.
With Axiom’s mission to the International Space Station, the first private astronaut crew to visit the orbital outpost, extended because of weather concerns, the members of NASA’s Crew-4 will now launch no earlier than Tuesday morning.
“The decision [to delay landing] was made based on the best weather for splashdown of the first private astronaut mission to visit the International Space Station and the return trajectory required to bring the crew and the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft back to Earth safely,” agency officials wrote in a blog post.
The crew — Michael López-AlegrÃa, a retired NASA astronaut and current Axiom employee; Larry Connor, a real estate and technology entrepreneur; Mark Pathy, a Canadian businessman; and Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli entrepreneur and former fighter jet pilot — launched to the orbital outpost on April 8, for a planned 10-day mission.
Their trip, however, has been unexpectedly prolonged due to poor weather at their landing site.
Ahead of the splashdown, set for Sunday at 1:46 p.m. EDT, the crew will board their Dragon spacecraft and close the hatch around 6:30 p.m. EDT and undock from ISS on Saturday evening at 8:35 p.m. EDT.
The capsule will land in the ocean off the coast of Florida — its exact location will depend on sea heights and weather on the day of landing — and once the crew has been safely extracted, teams from NASA and SpaceX can switch their focus to the next set of astronauts awaiting their mission.
NASA’s Crew-4 — Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines of NASA, along with Italian astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti — has now had their launch delayed until at least Tuesday at 4:15 a.m. EDT.
The next mission was delayed because the Ax-1 crew is currently parked in their spot on station. There are only two ports on the ISS that the Dragon can dock itself to, and with the Axiom crew there both are in use.
NASA’s head of human spaceflight, Kathy Leuders, told UPI on Wednesday that the teams want a two-day window between the return of Ax-1 and the launch of Crew-4 so that the recovery vessels can be restaged and agency officials can review flight data from the Axiom mission.
While the earliest potential launch date for Crew-4 is Tuesday at 4:15 a.m. EDT, the mission could also launch on April 27 or 28.
