The debut of the fifth and planned final Dragon spacecraft is going to take a bit longer. The vehicle, tail number C213, will won’t be ready to support the flight of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) to the International Space Station until next month.
The fourth private astronaut mission was most recently scheduled to launch no earlier than May 29 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. However, in an update from the space agency, those plans shifted to a launch targeting June 8 at the earliest.
“After reviewing the International Space Station flight schedule, NASA and its partners are shifting launch opportunities for several upcoming missions,” NASA said in a statement on Wednesday. “The schedule adjustments provide more time to finalize mission plans, spacecraft readiness, and logistics.”
The C213 Dragon spacecraft impacted multiple missions due to its delayed readiness over the years. Back in November 2022, Sarah Walker, SpaceX Director of Dragon Mission Management, said the company was building its fifth Cargo Dragon to “carry us into the future and make sure we can support as many flights as our customers want to fly with us.”
She said at the time that the capsule “should be ready in the 2024 timeframe.”
In July 2024, SpaceX said the capsule was being readied for the Crew-10 flight, originally scheduled for February 2025. That mission took on increased importance as it would carry the crew to relieve Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
However, SpaceX encountered problems with C213’s propulsion and environmental control systems and a then battery that needed replacement. Accessing and removing the battery required disassembly of a large part of the Dragon spacecraft. Facing a significant delay, NASA and SpaceX made the decision to instead fly Crew 10 on capsule 210, which originally had been scheduled to launch Axiom as early as April 2024.
Alongside NASA’s announcement of the further Ax-4 mission delay, Axiom Space, the managers of the private astronaut flight, announced a mission overview news conference, which will be held on Tuesday, May 20. Among the advertised participants are Dana Weigel, NASA’s manager of the ISS program, and Walker.
When it launches, Ax-4 will feature a roughly two-week stay for the four-member crew onboard the space station. The mission is led by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will be making her second trip to the orbiting outpost as an Axiom Space astronaut and her fifth trip to the ISS overall.
She will be joined by Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary. This will be the first spaceflight for Shukla, Uznański-Wiśniewski and Kapu.
In its announcement, NASA said it still plans to launch the Crew-11 mission to the ISS for a long-duration spaceflight no earlier than late July and SpaceX’s 33rd Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission would launch in late August.
“This Dragon cargo spacecraft also will be equipped with a robust reboost kit to aid in providing propulsive boosts to maintain the space station’s altitude,” NASA said of the CRS-33 mission. “This capability will help reduce Russian segment propellant use aboard the space station and maintain reserve levels.”
The ISS is set to be retired around the end of the decade and one or more commercially-built space stations aim to take its place to allow crewed work in microgravity to continue.
