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Historic SpaceX Flight to International Space Station Delayed Until December

by Max Eddy | 1:00 pm, October 2nd, 2011

Private space company SpaceX has announced that the landmark flight of its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station will have to be postponed until at least December 19th, 2011. The flight, which would mark the first time a privately owned spacecraft docked with the ISS, was originally slated for November 3rd of this year.

The Dragon flight is being rescheduled due to the uncertainty surrounding the safety of the Russian launch system after a Progress drone crashed during an automated resupply mission to the space station. It sounds like until the situation is resolved, and the spectre of leaving the ISS unoccupied subsides, the Dragon will have to take a back seat.SpaceX’s director of communications Kirstin Brost Grantham told the Universe Today:

NASA is working with SpaceX on our technical and safety data for this mission while coordinating with its international partners to sort out a launch schedule once a definitive decision is reached on the next Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. As a result, we’ve submitted December 19th to NASA and the Air Force as the first in a range of dates that we would be ready to launch [...] We recognize that a target launch date cannot be set until NASA gives us the green light as well as the partners involved in the International Space Station program make a decision on when to continue Soyuz flights. Our flight is one of many that have to be carefully coordinated, so the ultimate schedule of launches to the ISS is still under consideration.

For SpaceX, this is surely to be a disappointment as it will not only further delay a key event in the development of their launch systems, it will have marked over a year since the last flight by the company. The delay is especially unfortunate as the company has been so focused on fast and affordable space launches.

Currently, the Russian space agency has the next Progress resupply launch scheduled for the 30th of October, the outcome of which will likely define the future of the manned presence in space in the short term. If that flight goes well, the next manned Soyuz spacecraft is expected to blast off on November 12th. I’ll surely have my finger’s crossed.

(via Universe Today, image via SpaceX)

  • http://twitter.com/#!/christinebreese Christine Breese

    Have to make sure it’s safe first, better to delay then.

  • KevinICdesigner

    What does Russian flight safety have to do with SpaceX flight? Seems some red tape in there.

  • Anonymous

    Everything about NASA (as in every Federal Agency) is slow, wasteful, bureaucratic, inefficient, counter-productive….. more  Procrastination

    This is just another example..  SpaceX  is ready, lets go…

    No wonder NASA has not gotten a single American over 300 miles in earth since Apollo despite spending $500 billion over 35+ years on manned spaceflight. 

  • Anonymous

    Amerman, I couldn’t of said it better.  The current model congress uses with NASA and space is how can they get as much tax money into their states as possible?  It idea of actually doing something new in space is not important.  As long as some 2nd graders somewhere get to talk to the Astronauts in space while the congress person also gets to participate, mission accomplished.  The “space states” are so hooked on their corporate welfare from the federal government that this has become a giant political issue.

    When you look at the value for the dollar it is amazing at to what commercial space companies like SpaceX have accomplished so far compared to the money NASA burns through.

    Guess what it is going to cost tax payers to develop this reusable rocket system? $0.00
    Guess how many billions the tax payer could save if this works?   I am not sure but it would drive launch cost ways down, a great value for the tax payers.
    Guess who loses?  The companies that have enjoyed making giant profits off of the $500 billion spent over the last 35+ years of doing almost nothing new in space.

  • http://www.facebook.com/boomer.m.barnes Boomer Micheal Barnes

    The crew going up in the second Soyuz flight to the ISS needs to be there to handle the docking. The Dragon does not dock itself but hase the canada arm do it. The crew in the second flight has been training to do just that.


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