Astronauts on the International Space Station will spend an additional month in space due to delays in the production of a new Crew Dragon spacecraft. The delay, announced by NASA, pushes the launch of the Crew-10 mission from February to no earlier than late March.
The cause of the delay is attributed to the need for more time to complete the fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of the new spacecraft. NASA’s commercial crew program manager, Steve Stich, stated that the process requires “great attention to detail.” The agency plans to use a newly built Crew Dragon called Freedom, currently on the ISS for the Crew-9 mission.
The delay affects two astronauts who have been on the station since June and were originally scheduled to return soon. Their extended stay will now last around 10 months, assuming a launch of Crew-10 in late March. The new crew members for the Crew-10 mission are Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers from NASA, Takuya Onishi from JAXA, and Kirill Peskov from Roscosmos.
This delay gives extra time to the current Crew-9 crew, which launched on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in September. However, due to concerns over the Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s thrusters, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are staying on the station for an extended period. Their original stay was supposed to be as short as eight days but will now last around 10 months.
Source: https://spacenews.com/next-crew-dragon-mission-delayed-a-month