NASA Scrubbed Today’s SpaceX Crew-6 Launch, Reschedules for March 2

NASA and SpaceX were forced to scrub today’s launch of the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station due to an issue with the ground systems.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to take off early this morning from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center was halted less than three minutes before lift off.

Teams are investigating an issue with TEA-TEB (triethylaluminum triethylboron)—the ignition fluid that sparks with the oxidizer and allows the engines to fire, NASA commentator Gary Jordan explained during a webcast of the failed event.

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SpaceX has removed propellant from the Falcon 9 rocket and the astronauts have exited the Dragon spacecraft; there is no apparent damage to the spaceship.

“I’m proud of the NASA and SpaceX teams’ focus and dedication to keeping Crew-6 safe,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement(Opens in a new window). “Human spaceflight is an inherently risky endeavor and, as always, we will fly when we are ready.”

The mission marks the sixth crew rotation flight(Opens in a new window) of a Dragon spacecraft, carrying NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, who will serve as commander and pilot, respectively, as well as mission specialists Sultan Alneyadi (of the United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev (a Russian cosmonaut).

The group is scheduled for a long-duration state of up to six months aboard the ISS, where they’ll conduct science and maintenance before returning to Earth later this year.

The next launch opportunity on Tuesday, Feb. 28, has also been scrapped due to “unfavorable weather forecast conditions,” according to NASA. Instead, assuming today’s technical issue has been resolved, they will try again at 12:34 a.m. EST on Thursday, March 2.

If all goes well later this week, the crew will dock the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s Endeavour to the forward port on the space station’s Harmony module, about 25 hours after liftoff. Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Koichi Wakata, and Anna Kikina—SpaceX Crew-5 members—have been living and working on the space station since October 2022; they will swap places with the new crew, taking the Dragon Endurance and making a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida.