NASA and SpaceX conduct preparation activities as tropical storm delays Crew-9 mission

SpaceX fires its Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in preparation for the Crew 9 mission on Saturday, September 28. The test came after a dress rehearsal of launch activities the day before. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

NASA and SpaceX continued their scheduled launch preparation activities at Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday, despite delaying the launch date of the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station due to the expected impacts of Tropical Storm Helene.

In a statement late Tuesday afternoon, NASA announced that the launch, originally scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 26, has been pushed back to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT (17:17 UTC) on Saturday, Sept. 28. The agency said the storm, which is expected to develop into a hurricane as early as Wednesday morning, will likely impact Florida's Space Coast.

Employees monitor the countdown during a dress rehearsal in preparation for the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in the control room of SpaceX HangarX at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber

“Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to impact the Florida Panhandle, the storm system is large enough that the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions of Florida's east coast are expected to experience strong winds and heavy rainfall,” NASA wrote in a blog post.

In the afternoon, NASA, SpaceX and Space Force Guardians conducted a so-called dress rehearsal for launch day with Space Launch Delta 45. They simulated the day's activities with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexandr Gorbunov in the loop and went through the countdown process.

After the dry-run dress rehearsal, SpaceX will conduct a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket. The nine Merlin engines at the base of the booster, B1085 in the SpaceX fleet, will fire for a few seconds before shutting down.

Astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov head to Launch Pad 40 on Tuesday afternoon to participate in a countdown rehearsal for the Crew-9 mission, which is now scheduled for launch no earlier than Saturday. Watch live views from the Cape: pic.twitter.com/GsWqR9cWMj

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B1085 was previously scheduled to launch on August 20, 2024, with the Starlink mission 10-5. The reason the rocket initially launched a Starlink mission before a manned flight is a water ingress incident during the flight from SpaceX's test facilities in McGregor, Texas, to Florida.

“Some moisture got into the fuel. [liquid oxygen] tank of that booster as it was being transported from McGregor to the Cape. The desiccant system wasn't working as designed,” said Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, during an Aug. 7 press conference. “That desiccant system is designed to keep the air dry, and so it wasn't working as designed. So we had to dry out those tanks and then replace some components on the vehicle.”

As preparations continue for NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft will roll to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. Image: SpaceX

B1085, along with its new second stage and the Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft, rolled out of the Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) hangar in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The rocket was erected shortly after 9:30 a.m. EDT (13:30 UTC).

The launch is the first manned mission from SLC-40, which provides NASA and SpaceX with redundant capabilities to launch Dragon missions from both of SpaceX's launch pads in Florida.

After launch, Dragon Freedom will remain docked to the ISS until February 2025. It will fly along with Hague and Gorbunov, as well as NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams.

NASA decided to use the Dragon spacecraft to bring Wilmore and Williams home after concluding that there were enough uncertainties about the Boeing Starliner spacecraft's engines that it did not feel comfortable using it as a crew return vehicle at the end of the Crew Flight Test mission.