WASHINGTON — Axiom Space is set to launch its third private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, although technical issues have compressed the timeline for launch preparations.
During a media teleconference Jan. 16, officials from Axiom, NASA and SpaceX said they were proceeding with a planned Jan. 17 launch of the Ax-3 mission to the ISS. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off at 5:11 p.m. Eastern and place a Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit that will dock with the station about 36 hours later.
That briefing was intended to take place after the completion of the launch readiness review, the final major review before launch. However, officials said on the call they had postponed that review to early Jan. 17 to give teams more time to complete preparations for the launch.
That work was affected by inspections over the weekend that found issues with joints that connect the Dragon spacecraft to the Falcon 9 upper stage. Two of the four joints were tightened with torques “a little out of family,” said Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight programs at SpaceX. He did not say if they were too tight or too loose.
SpaceX decided to replace the connections “out of an abundance of caution,” he said, a process that delayed other launch preparations. While SpaceX and Axiom had planned to perform a “dry dress rehearsal,” or walkthrough of launch preparations for the crew, on Jan. 15, that was delayed a day.
Reed said SpaceX compressed the schedule of preparations to prevent a delay, including postponing the launch readiness review to the morning of the launch. “They worked hard through the weekend to keep the launch on Wednesday,” he said of launch teams. “Right now we’re on track.”
A second issue found during preparations for the launch involves the parachute system. Reed said that inspections of the parachutes from the CRS-29 cargo Dragon spacecraft that splashed down Dec. 22 found evidence that…
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