The space explorers of SpaceX’s first operational astronaut mission for NASA should stand by a few of more days to return home from the International Space Station because of bad weather at their splashdown site.
NASA’s four Crew-1 astronauts were planned to return to Earth Wednesday (April 28) on their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, making a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the shore of Florida. Be that as it may, high winds has forced NASA and SpaceX to postpone the landing to Saturday (May 1). Splashdown is focused for 11:36 a.m. EDT (1536 GMT).
“NASA and SpaceX agreed to move Crew-1’s undocking and splashdown from Wednesday, April 28, following a review of forecast weather conditions in the splashdown zones off the coast of Florida, which currently predict wind speeds above the recovery criteria,” NASA officials said in a statement. “Teams will continue to monitor weather conditions for splashdown ahead of Friday’s planned undocking.”
SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission for NASA launched on Nov. 15 to check the first operational crewed flight on a commercial Crew Dragon spacecraft. It showed up at the station a day later to ship NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency space traveler Soichi Noguchi to the orbiting laboratory.
A week ago, SpaceX launched its second crew change flight for NASA, called Crew-2, to fly four additional space travelers to the station. Those space travelers showed up on Saturday (April 24) as a help group for the Crew-1 spaceflyers.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience is expected to splashdown in one of seven sites off the Atlantic coast of Florida or in the Gulf of Mexico, the specific site is subject to climate, when it returns the Crew-1 astronauts to Earth.
With the splashdown deferral to Saturday, Resilience will now undock from the space station on Friday (April 30) at 5:55 p.m. EDT (2155 GMT). NASA’s live inclusion of undocking will start at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) on Friday and proceed through splashdown and a post-landing press conference.