Everything had been looking good for a liftoff of the Axiom Mission 4 carrying a quartet of astronauts to the International Space Station last Wednesday, June 11, until SpaceX engineers discovered a liquid oxygen (LOX) fuel leak in the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket upon further review of data from a static fire test of the first stage Merlin 1D engines conducted on June 8.
“Standing down from tomorrow’s Falcon 9 launch of Ax-4 to the @Space_Station to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair the LOx leak identified during post static fire booster inspections. Once complete – and pending Range availability – we will share a new launch date,” SpaceX tweeted.
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX decided to standing down from the launch opportunity on Wednesday, June 11, of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station “to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair a liquid oxygen leak identified during post-static fire Falcon 9 rocket inspections,” NASA announced in a message and a blog post late on June 10.
The next possible launch date for the Axiom Mission 4 crew is currently slated to be no earlier than Thursday June 19th, pending completion of the repair work and range availability.
The Crew Dragon capsule being used for this mission is the fifth and final constructed for the SpaceX fleet of Crew Dragons.
This fourth commercial mission by Axiom Space is led by retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson – on her fifth spaceflight. She is currently the United State’s most experienced astronaut with a combined 675 days spent in low Earth orbit. On May 31st, Whitson was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
The trio of rookie crewmates, rounding out the crew of four, hail from India, Hungary and Poland. The Ax-4 mission will mark the return to human spaceflight for the three nations as it will be the first government-sponsored flight for each nation in more than 40 years.
The four person international crew will conduct more than 60 science experiments from 31 countries to enhance global knowledge in human research, Earth observation, and life, biological, and material sciences.
Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
