SpaceX’s four-man launch to the space station was destroyed shortly before liftoff

In a tragic incident, the launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying a four-man crew on its way to the International Space Station was aborted with three minutes left to take off this morning. this Monday morning due to a problem used in the ignition of the first stage of the Falcon 9. engines.

Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen, Warren “Woody” Hoburg, astronaut Andrey Fedyaev and Emerati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, the first Arab to be assigned to the space station for a long time, took a decisive step with patience in the plane while the rocket launchers are. the drain.

The SpaceX team closed then returned to the pad, opened the capsule’s side hatch and helped the crew climb out of the vehicle to return to the NASA crew. This is the first non-weather related launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft since the spacecraft began carrying astronauts to the space station in 2020.

The problem was caused by the engine’s fuel, a chemical known as triethylaluminum triethylboron, or “TEA-TEB,” which reacts with liquid oxygen to turn the Falcon 9’s first stage engines.

If the problem can be resolved in time, NASA and SpaceX will make another attempt to launch Crew-6 at 12:34 a.m. EST Thursday. Mission managers held a test launch on Tuesday due to the expected bad weather and Wednesday was unsuccessful due to the needs of the space station.

Along with the frustration of the pilots, the experience also ruined SpaceX’s ability to launch three Falcon 9s in just 13 hours with a planned afternoon launch in Florida and California to place two batches of Internet satellites Starlink in orbit. Those flights appeared to remain on schedule, but bad weather threatened to launch in California.

Each time Crew-6 takes off, Bowen and company will be greeted at the station by Crew-5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and space queen Anna Kikina, Russian national of first shot in a Crew Dragon ship. They arrived at the station last October and are planning to return to Earth around March 6 to close out the 151-day mission.

Also welcoming the crew of Crew-6 will be Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio. They launched the lab last September and originally planned to fly home in March.

But their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was crippled on December 14 when a suspected micrometeoroid ruptured the coolant line. After investigation, Russian engineers concluded that the spacecraft could not be safely used again due to the possibility of critical components overheating.

Instead, a replacement Soyuz — MS-23 — was launched last Thursday, carrying equipment and supplies instead of crew. Kumbon managed to stay with the station on Saturday night, giving Prokopyev and his colleagues a safe ride home.

But to get the crew’s rotation schedule on track, the trio will spend six more months in space, returning home this fall after a full year in orbit. They will share the station with Crew 6 for most of the season.

Alneyadi, a father of six, is the second Emerati to fly in space but the first named to spend a full six months on the station. During his trip, two Saudi aircraft will visit the laboratory complex for about a week as part of a commercial project managed by Houston-based Axiom Space.

“I think it’s going to be very interesting,” Alneyadi said after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center last week. “It is because of education, to spread the knowledge of how important it is to fly (in space) and to push the boundaries of research, not only in the big countries.

“Our region is also thirsty to learn more. And I think we will be ambassadors in these activities. Hopefully we will bring back knowledge and share everything we have learned with everyone.”