Rocket snag delays crew flight to station

NASA announced Saturday that SpaceX’s next mission flying astronauts to the International Space Station will be delayed until early or mid-November after the company experienced a problem with the first stage of a booster rocket during a recent launch.

In a blog post, the agency said the extra time would allow “SpaceX to complete hardware testing and data reviews” of an issue with an engine gas generator. NASA said it has “full insight into the company’s launch and testing data.”

“We have a strong working relationship with our SpaceX partner,” said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA’s human exploration and operations mission directorate. “With the high cadence of missions SpaceX performs, it really gives us incredible insight into this commercial system and helps us make informed decisions about the status of our missions. The teams are actively working this finding on the engines, and we should be a lot smarter within the coming week.”

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier this month, after the company had to delay a couple of launches because of mechanical snags, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, said on Twitter that he was going to Cape Canaveral to conduct a “broad review” of operations there.

The mission, which had previously been scheduled for Oct. 31, would launch NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, Victor Glover as well as Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the space station for a stay of about six months.

It would be SpaceX’s first operational mission of flying full crews for extended stays after it successfully completed a shorter test mission with two astronauts in August to verify the performance of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.