Yesterday’s planned launch of Soyuz M-25 to the International Space Station was aborted with twenty seconds left in the countdown. NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus are fine, and were evacuated from the Soyuz capsule shortly afterwards.
According to state-owned Russian domestic news agency RIA Novosti, the launch was canceled due to a voltage drawdown of a chemical power source.
“All preparations for liftoff on March 21 went without a hitch until around L-20-second mark when the Emergency Engine Cutoff, AVD, command interrupted the final countdown. At that moment, the launch control had already issued the “Pusk” (launch) command (normally issued at L-19 seconds), however, one umbilical mast, VKM (from the Russian Verkhnyaya Kabel Machta), located above the surface of the pad, remained connected to the rocket, with its nominal retraction usually taking place at L-15 seconds in the countdown.”
Russian space reporter Katya Pavlushchenko posted later on the X platform that this launch was “the first time ever when a crewed Soyuz launch was aborted a few minutes before launch. If it happened before, it was a day before launch during the standard checks.”
Soyuz MS-25 crew members: (L-R) Tracy C. Dyson, Oleg Novitskiy, and Marina Vasilevskaya. Photo: Credits: GCTC/Andrey Shelepin
The launch has been postponed to March 23, at 7:36 AM EDT. Coverage of launch and docking activities will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
Soyuz MS-25 crew members: (L-R) Tracy C. Dyson, Oleg Novitskiy, and Marina Vasilevskaya. Photo: Credits: GCTC/Andrey Shelepin
After an incredibly busy week for spaceflight last week, this week promises to be equally busy. We have two Starlink launches (one from Vandenberg, another from KSC), SpaceX/NASA CRS-30 from SLC-40 sending supplies to ISS, and a Rocket Lab launch from Wallops early on the 21st. Also, a NASA astronaut is heading to ISS aboard a Soyuz on Thursday as well.
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:21 AM EDT (6:21 p.m. Baikonur time).
Dyson, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be taking the fast-track to ISS, with a two-orbit, three hour journey with a planned docking at the Russian Prichal module at 12:39 PM EDT.
MS-25 Crew
Tracy C. Dyson will be taking her second long-duration mission to the ISS, with her first being a stint coming from her being a member of the Expedition 23/24 crew from April 2010 to September 2010. She also flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on STS-118 in 2007, and has spent over 188 days in space. She will spend several months aboard ISS as part of Expedition 70/71, with a planned return date of September 24, 2024 aboard Soyuz.
Oleg Novitskiy is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Air Force, and an old salt when it comes to space travel: he has spent some 588 days in orbit already, as a member of Expedition 33/34, Expedition 50/51 and Expedition 64/65, and will serve as the commander for this flight, Soyuz MS-25. His stay at ISS is planned for twelve days.
Marina Vasilevskaya is not officially designated by Roscosmos as a cosmonaut, but instead as a spaceflight participant. The Belarusian was selected from over 3,000 applicants to be the country’s first woman in space by the Belarus Academy of Sciences. She has been training at Star City with Roscosmos since July of last year in theoretical and practical training for the flight as well as emergency operations and zero gravity conditions. As part of the 21st Visiting Expedition to ISS, she will also spend approximately twelve days aboard the orbiting international outpost.
Loral O’Hara To Return With Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will return aboard Soyuz MS-24, which has been docked at ISS since September of last year. Dyson will remain aboard ISS, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will return with them, concluding her roughly six month assignment on orbit. The spacecraft has a planned landing zone in Kazakhstan after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Launch Viewing
Launch coverage will begin at 8:20 a.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
SpaceX capsule Endurance, post-landing on March 12, 2024 Photo: SpaceX
The Crew-7 mission to the ISS ended this morning with a splashdown at 5:50 AM EDT this morning in the Gulf of Mexico. The splashdown near Pensacola, Florida marked the end of a six and one half month mission aboard the International Space Station for the crew of four.
By 6:13 AM EDT, the Crew Dragon Spacecraft Endurance was hoisted safely aboard the SpaceX recovery ship Megan, with the crew exiting Endurance around 6:36 AM.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 crew in training at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, before their mission to the International Space Station. Imagery provided by SpaceX / NASA
NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov launched on August 26, 2023 from the Kennedy Space Center. Their mission extended for 199 days, logging a 84,434,094 mile journey consisting of 3,184 orbits around Earth.
While in orbit, the crew conducted over 200 science experiments, one of which was a critical study on the impact of spaceflight on immune function. Additionally, the crew engaged in testing innovative membranes intended for the removal of contaminants from wastewater—a critical advancement for future deep space expeditions where water recycling is essential.
Infographic courtesy Spaceintel101.com
The mission set a new record for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, Endurance. This mission marked Endurance’s third flight and took its total days in space to 534, more than any other crew-rated vehicle in history. Space X’s Crew Dragon capsules are currently rated for reuse on five missions, but the success rate has been so high across SpaceX’s fleet of four Crew Dragons, the company plans to pursue flight certifications to substantially increase that rating to around fifteen.
The return of Crew-7 paves the way for future missions, including the forthcoming cargo Dragon Resupply Mission, CRS-30 next week, as well as Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule’s scheduled test mission in May. While Crew 7 was docked at the ISS, there were a total of six docking ports being used for various crew and cargo modules, creating enough congestion that the Boeing Starliner flight test was pushed from April to May.
Crew-8 Members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 from left to right, NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; Michael Barratt, pilot; Matthew Dominick, commander; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist; are photographed inside the crew access arm at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo: SpaceX
NASA announced this morning that “due to unfavorable weather conditions forecast in offshore areas along the flight track, NASA and SpaceX now are targeting Saturday, March 2 at 11:15 p.m. EST for Crew-8 launch.”
Weather here on the Space Coast appears to be acceptable for a launch, and it appears that forecasters have scaled back their rain estimates for the area — down from 40% chances of precipitation overnight to as little as 15%. Unfortunately, the forecasts aren’t as good along the launch corridor, and in the unlikely case of a launch abort, the crew would be descending into unacceptable conditions.
Illustration of forecasted high-altitude winds in the launch corridor of Crew-8 tonight at 12 AM EST. While these are merely estimates, they do illustrate the conditions that the astronauts could face during an abort event. The trajectory of Falcon 9 towards ISS is the yellow line. Forecast: Windy.com
NASA’s Manager of Commercial Crew, Steve Stich, outlined this in a press conference at Kennedy Space Center yesterday. “It’s one of the more complicated times during ascent relative to how we do abort weather,” he said. “We basically have a number of points all across the ascent ground track from the launch pad all the way to orbit insertion. And for each one of those points, we look at a weighted risk.”
Stich also said that “At staging, we look at that location because if you think about all the events that have to happen at staging, when the first stage, the nine Merlin engines shut down, there’s separation and the MVAC engine has to start.”
Should that second stage engine fail to ignite properly, the crew would be in an abort mode and down into weather that NASA and SpaceX officials have deemed too risky to attempt a launch at the original planned liftoff time. Conditions are expected over to improve over the next couple of days as the frontal boundary pushes south.
Saturday’s Weather: Iffy.
Saturday may well end up as a repeat of today: weather will likely still be a concern, and a scrub may be necessitated according to today’s forecast by the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron:
While weather here on the Space Coast looks as though it will have a 90% chance of acceptable launch conditions early Friday morning for a 12:04 AM EST launch of astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin to the International Space Station, NASA officials raised concerns that weather along the watch corridor may not be acceptable.
In a pre-flight press conference this morning at the Kennedy Space Center Press Site, Steve Stich, NASA’s Manager for the Commercial Crew Program said, “Launch weather looks really favorable for Friday morning’s early launch. I would say the abort weather is what we’re watching very carefully.”
45th Weather Squadron Forecast
The 45th Weather Squadron released their first launch forecast for Crew-8 at 12:00 PM EST today:
Steve Stich, NASA’s Manager for the Commercial Crew Program at today’s Crew-8 Press Conference. via: NASA Livestream
Additional Stich Comments At Today’s Press Conference
“We have to have weather along the east coast ground track to be acceptable for launch,” Stich added. “That weather right now is not looking as favorable as we’d like. We’ll do another weather briefing tonight and then we’ll take a look at the weather again.”
He added later that the weather forecast is in the marginal column, but not yet in the zone that would necessitate a scrub out of an abundance of caution. “I would say it’s marginal right now based on the forecast,” Stich said. “We’ll go look at the weather tonight and make a decision. Do we push the launch 24 hours at that point, or do we take it down further? And that’s really going to be based on the weather models and the prediction of this trough. And then sometimes we’ll take it all the way down to the day of launch, and we just have to look at the data a little bit more.”
Why Is Launch Corridor Weather A Critical Concern?
In the relatively unlikely event of a launch abort, NASA and SpaceX want to ensure that conditions for an unplanned splashdown of the crew at sea are safe.
Stich illustrated this with some in-depth comments: “At staging, we look at that location because if you think about all the events that have to happen at staging, when the first stage, the nine Merlin engines shut down, there’s separation and the MVAC engine has to start.”
“It’s one of the more complicated times during ascent relative to how we do abort weather, we basically have a number of points all across the ascent ground track from the launch pad all the way to orbit insertion. And for each one of those points, we look at a weighted risk,” Stich said.
Should that second-stage engine ignition fail to occur, an abort would be necessary. Again, this unlikely, but bad weather is an unacceptable risk for astronauts descending from a far-from-nominal state in their spaceflight.
Not Scrubbed, Not Yet, Stay Tuned
To be clear, at the time of this writing, 1:00 PM EST on Wednesday, the mission has not been delayed. That decision will be made later, so stay tuned.
Crew-8: (L-R) Cosmonaut Alexander Grebenken, Astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps on the tarmac at KSC’s Launch and Landing Facility on February 25, 2024. Photo: Charles Boyer, Talk of Titusville
On Friday at 12:04 AM EST, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, along with one Roscosmos cosmonaut, Alexander Grebenkin, are scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon and head towards the International Space Station. The crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center yesterday to begin their final preparations for the launch on March 1st.
Later in the day, mission managers and engineers conducted a Flight Readiness Review for the mission, where they assessed the rocket’s readiness, the crew and several other critical factors to approve the mission start.
Crew Arrival
Early in the afternoon, the crew arrived at the Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) at Kennedy Space Center, where they gave brief remarks to the press before leaving for other duties.
Mission Commander Matthew Dominick
Dominick, a former US Navy test pilot and a NASA astronaut since 2017 remarked that it is an “incredible time for spaceflight,” where launch activities at Kennedy Space Center and the Eastern Range happen so often that Crew-8 was slightly delayed to accommodate other missions:
Crew-8 Mission Commander Matthew Dominick’s gave remarks after he arrived at Kennedy Space Center.
Mission Pilot Sr. Michael Barratt
Dr. Barratt is an experienced and well-seasoned astronaut, having flown twice on Soyuz, and once on the Space Shuttle before he became a member of Crew-8. He has been extensively involved in medical and human factors applications for new space vehicles in the Commercial Crew and Artemis Programs, space medical risks, and research efforts. He began working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in May 1991.
Barratt remarked that Kennedy Space Center has rebounded greatly since the end of the Shuttle program, and that today it is an incredibly busy place:
Mission Specialist Dr. Jeanette Epps
Dr. Epps, who has been with NASA since 2009, remarked on the long road to the launch pad and how she was trained on Russian, Boeing, and SpaceX flight systems. She holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and is a well-respected and oft-cited researcher in her field and an astronaut.
In her remarks, she thanked everyone who participated in getting the mission to launch readiness.
Dr. Jeanette Epps speaks on February 25, 2024 after she arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Rusian Cosmonaut Alexander Grebenken
Grebenken, has served in the technical and operational units of the Air Force of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Armed Forces and has been a member of the Russian cosmonaut corps since 2018, first as a cosmonaut candidate, and in 2020 he was awarded the qualification of a test cosmonaut. He spoke through an interpreter during his brief remarks.
Alexander Grebenken on February 25, 2024 after he arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Flight Readiness Review
Also yesterday, a Flight Readiness Review for Crew-8 was conducted by mission managers at NASA and SpaceX to assess whether the mission was ready to proceed with the launch as planned on Friday.
Ken Bowersox, Associate Administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA said, “We talked about some of the technical items, on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, the readiness of the crew, and the Space Station and even some of the science the crew will conduct.”
Bowersox said results were positive: “At the end of the review, everybody polled ‘Go’ and we’re on track for a launch at 12:04 EST on Friday March 1st from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.”
Screen-capture of SpaceX livestream of the AX3 reentry and splashdown. This shot was captured a few minutes after the capsule had landed safely. Photo: SpaceX
The Axiom-3 mission has ended safely off the Florida coast near Daytona Beach. Michael López-Alegría, Commander of the the AX3 mission, reported a few minutes after the splashdown “flying SpaceX was our pleasure” and that “all four crew members are feeling well.”
SpaceX ground controllers were also pleased by the safe landing, telling the crew, “Thank you for flying SpaceX!”
Several Space Coast area residents reported that while the reentry was largely obscured by clouds overhead, they could definitely hear a sonic boom that heralded the return of Crew Dragon.
Historian and host of the podcast “Space And Things” Emily Carney told Talk of Titusville that she heard the sonic boom on the other side of Florida, “I could hear the sonic booms all the way in Saint Petersburg – they woke me up, they were quite impressive. I checked my newsfeed to verify Ax-3 was returning and that was the culprit!”
Winds Delayed Landing
Originally slated to land last weekend, the Axiom-3 return to Earth had been delayed several days due to inclement weather off both sides of the Florida peninsula. High winds also affected the timing of the liftoff of NASA’s PACE mission this week. The winds finally relented and allowed both the launch and the splashdown on Thursday and today, respectively, and both missions were completed successfully: PACE is on orbit and Axiom-3’s astronauts are back on the Earth.
Screen-capture of SpaceX livestream of the AX3 splashdown. Photo: SpaceX
Next Steps
Crew Dragon Freedom will then return to Port Canaveral in Florida and astronauts will undergo post-flight health checks and debriefing. The capsule will return to Space X’s facilities at Kennedy Space Center for analysis, checkouts and hopefully refurbishment for the next mission.
Experiments performed by the crew aboard ISS will also be analyzed, a process that could extend for several months.
We reached out to Axiom Space to ascertain when a potential Axiom-4 mission could take place, and they told us, “NASA and Axiom Space have signed a mission order for the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, targeted to launch no earlier than October 2024 from the agency’s NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” On today’s SpaceX livestream, commentators mentioned that they were looking forward to working with the Axiom for that mission.
Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 portrait: (L-R) Stephanie Wilson, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Nick Hague, and Zena Cardman. Photo: NASA
NASA announced the four astronauts that will travel aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station later this year: Zena Cardman will be the Mission Commander, Nick Hague will be the Pilot, along with Stephanie Wilson and Russian Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will travel to ISS no earlier than August 2024.
Zena Cardman
Zena Cardman Photo: UNC Chapel Hill
Cardman will be making her first spaceflight on this mission. She is a Williamsburg, Virginia, native and holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology plus a master’s in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While a doctoral candidate, Cardman researched geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep-sea sediments. Since joining NASA, she has supported real-time ISS operations and development for lunar surface exploration.
Nick Hague
Nick Hague Photo: NASA
For Hague, this mission will be his third launch and his second mission to ISS. During his first launch in 2018, Hague and his crewmate Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin were aboard Soyuz MS-10 when they experienced a booster failure resulting in an in-flight launch abort. The spacecraft landed safely with no serious injuries. Resiliently, only five months later, Hague launched aboard Soyuz MS-12 and served as a flight engineer aboard the space station during Expeditions 59 and 60. He has spent 203 days in space and has conducted three spacewalks as part of his duties aboard ISS.
Soyuz MS-10 breaking up above Kazakhstan with Nick Hague abord. The launch abort system can be seen firing, bottom center. Photo: NASA
Stephanie Wilson
Stephanie Wilson Photo: NASA
Wilson has spent 42 days in space aboard three separate space shuttle Discovery missions, STS-121, STS-120, and STS-131. A graduate of Engineering Science from Harvard University, she also earned a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas in Austin. Wilson has been with NASA for 29 years and has served as the integration branch chief for NASA’s Astronaut Office, focusing on International Space Station systems and payload operations. She also served as the acting chief of NASA’s Program and Project Integration Office at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
As the ground fills with smoke and steam, Space Shuttle Discovery creates its own fireworks display, fitting for the first ever launch on Independence Day. It was the third launch attempt in four days; the others were scrubbed due to weather concerns. Liftoff on mission STS-121 was on-time at 2:38 p.m. EDT. During the 12-day mission, the STS-121 crew of seven will test new equipment and procedures to improve shuttle safety, deliver supplies and make repairs to the International Space Station. Landing is scheduled for July 16 or 17 at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility. Photo: NASA/Nikon/Scott Andrews
Aleksandr Gorbunov Photo: Roscosmos
Aleksandr Gorbunov
The mission will be Gorbunov’s first trip to space and the station. Hailing from Zheleznogorsk, in south-central Russia, he studied engineering with qualifications in spacecraft and upper stages from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Gorbunov graduated from the military department with a specialty in operating and repairing aircraft, helicopters, and aircraft engines. He previously worked for engineer for Rocket Space Corporation Energia and since joining the Russian cosmonaut corps, he has supported Russian cargo missions to ISS.
This will be the ninth rotational mission to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
A Northrup Grumman Cygnus at the International Space Station Photo courtesy of Northrup Grumman
On Monday, January 29th, update: Tuesday, January 30th SpaceX will launch Northrup-Grumman’s Cygnus CRS-2 towards the International Space Station aboard a Falcon 9. This launch will be the 20th resupply mission carried out as part of NG’s Commercial Resupply contract with NASA, and will ferry supplies for the station’s crew, equipment, as well as new scientific experiments to the orbiting outpost.
The launch is scheduled for 12:07 PM EST with an instantaneous window from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40. Approximately eight minutes after launching, the booster used for this mission will return to the Cape to land at LZ-1, SpaceX’s landing facility located about 5.6 miles to the south of the launch pad.
The Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft’s pressurized cargo module (PCM) for the company’s 20th commercial resupply mission is lifted and moved by crane inside the high bay in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. Photo: NASA
With a capacity of about 5,000 kg, Cygnus is a pressurized multi-purpose logistics module with about 36 cubic meters of interior volume that can be loaded with supplies. Cygnus is compatible with multiple launch vehicles including Northrop Grumman’s Antares 330 and Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) currently in development, and has launched on ULA’s Atlas V, Antares vehicles and SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The module is also capable of reboosting the ISS to a higher orbit, but it is not known at this time if that capability will be utilized by NG-20.
Experiments Aboard NG-20
NASA released information regarding the experiments that will be aboard Cygnus for ISS astronauts to perform:
MABL-A, Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Microgravity Induced Bone Loss, Part A: This experiment aims to study the role of mesenchymal stem cells in microgravity-induced bone loss. The results could provide a better understanding of the basic molecular mechanisms of bone loss caused by spaceflight and normal aging on Earth.
APEX-10, Advanced Plant Experiment-10: This experiment will study plant-microbe interactions in space, which may support steps to optimize these beneficial interactions to increase plant productivity on Earth as well as in space.
BRIC-25, Biological Research in Canisters-25: This experiment studies how microgravity affects Staphylococcus aureus, a common and concerning bacterium. The knowledge gained from this experiment could not only safeguard astronauts’ health but also improve our understanding of bacterial adaptations on Earth.
Flight Trajectory
The flight trajectory for the NG-20 mission is to the northeast. The booster will travel southwest to return to the landing zone at Cape Canaveral.
Booster 1077 History
Booster B1077 will fly its tenth mission for this flight. B1077 has successfully completed nine previous launches and landings, and was first used for the Crew-5 mission.
Alper Gezeravcı, Marcus Wandt, Michael López-Alegría, Walter Villadei Photo: Axiom Space
Axiom Mission 3, the first all-European private mission to the International Space Station, will launch no earlier than January 17, 2024 from Kennedy Space Center, the company announced today. The astronauts will fly aboard a Crew Dragon boosted by a SpaceX Falcon 9 and will depart from LC-39A.
You must be logged in to post a comment.