Musk results give SpaceX a pre-launch scare
SpaceX is moving ahead with what it hopes will be regular flights to the International Space Station, carrying full contingents of astronauts for extended stays. The first of those flights is scheduled for launch tomorrow, with three astronauts from the United States and one from Japan.
However, the entire mission was thrown into doubt after Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, tweeted that he had tested positive for coronavirus twice, but also that he had tested negative on the same day. He said he had been feeling unwell for the past few days.
The news left SpaceX and Nasa scrambling to determine whether Musk had come into contact with anyone who might have had access to the astronauts.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine said yesterday contact tracing had shown that ‘‘no mission essential personnel has been in touch with Elon Musk’’.
He said Nasa coronavirus rules would effectively prohibit Musk from coming to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, where SpaceX has its launch control centre. Musk had already said he would not attend the launch.
Bridenstine said the health and safety of the astronauts was ‘‘paramount’’, and they had been in quarantine for several weeks leading up to the launch.
To get to this point, SpaceX has had to overcome a series of failures. Its Falcon 9 rocket has exploded twice, in 2015 and 2016.
Then last year, its Dragon capsule exploded during a test of its abort engines.
Nasa this week said that after years of work, it had certified SpaceX to fly crews to space – the first time a commercial company has held that responsibility.
The Crew Dragon is equipped with emergency escape engines that can pull the capsule away from the rocket in case anything goes wrong. The spacecraft would then land somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.