SpaceX, NASA Postpone Rocket Launch to International Space Station

The International Space Station. (Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP)

SpaceX and NASA postponed on Feb. 27 the launch of the International Space Station’s (ISS) next crew because of a last-minute technical problem.

The rocket was supposed to lift off at 1:45 a.m. local time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, but the countdown was stopped by engineers overseeing the ground systems. An issue related to the TEA-TEB ignition fluid, which is used to set off the engines for the 230-foot-tall Falcon 9’s rocket at liftoff, was found to be the direct cause.

The launch team discovered a problem involving ground equipment used for loading the engine ignition fluid and couldn’t be sure there was a full load, NASA officials said. A SpaceX engineer compared that critical ignition system to spark plugs on a car, CBS News reported.

NASA operators decided to call off the launch “out of an abundance of caution,” SpaceX systems engineer Kate Tice said on the space agency’s webcast.

The four crewmembers who waited for hours to lift off in their Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket were able to disembark after waiting for the launch vehicle to be drained of fuel.

The SpaceX rocket bound for the space station will ferry two NASA astronauts, Stephen Bowen, a veteran of three space shuttle missions, and first-time flier Warren Hoburg, along with Sultan al-Neyadi, who will be the second astronaut from the United Arab Emirates to travel to space, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

The Crew-6 team will remain at the space center until the next launch attempt.

Capsule Troubles at the Space Station

The current occupants of the space station had been dealing with a separate transportation issue for some time. The crew had run into supply delays after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that had transported two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut to the space station began to leak coolant in December 2022.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, was able to send a replacement capsule to the ISS on Feb. 23 after the original one was deemed too unsafe from the damage to return the crew safely.

While SpaceX didn’t immediately say when it would try again, NASA stated that it would now look to launch the SpaceX Crew-6 mission shortly after midnight on March 2,  “pending resolution of the technical issue preventing Monday’s launch.”

“We'll be sitting here waiting,” Bowen said. “We’re all feeling good.”

Bowen and his crewmates will replace the Crew-5 team who have been in space since October 2022. The new crew is expected to remain aboard the orbiting laboratory for up to six months while carrying out science experiments and maintaining the almost 23-year-old space station.

The mission will mark the seventh spaceflight that SpaceX has carried out to bring up astronauts on NASA’s behalf since 2020.

“I’m proud of the NASA and SpaceX teams’ focus and dedication to keeping Crew-6 safe,” NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson said in a blog post after the scrubbed launch.

“Human spaceflight is an inherently risky endeavor and, as always, we will fly when we are ready.”