NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 mission to space station now launching in October

NASA and SpaceX have deferred the launch of the fifth crew rotation mission (Crew-5) to the International Space Station (ISS) to October 2022. The Crew-5 mission, which was scheduled to launch on September 29, 2022, will now launch no earlier than 12:45 p.m. EDT Monday, October 3.

"The date adjustment allows for extra separation with spacecraft traffic coming to and from the space station," NASA said in a statement on Thursday.

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 12:45 p.m. EDT Monday, Oct. 3, for the launch of the agency's Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station.Learn more: https://t.co/6f1aOb5lrf pic.twitter.com/iuXtDwuPP3

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) August 26, 2022

The crew, including Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, will lift off aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endurance – atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket – from NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

This will be the first spaceflight for Mann, Cassada and Kikina and the fifth trip for Wakata. The crew will dock Dragon Endurance to the forward port on the station's Harmony module about 24 hours later.

The Crew-5 astronauts have undergone mission-specific training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. They also travelled to SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, for spacecraft training, and to international partner agencies for system and payload training.

Later in October, astronauts from NASA's SpaceX Crew-4 mission are scheduled to return to Earth in October aboard their SpaceX Dragon Freedom. The Crew-4 astronauts have been living and working on the orbital lab as Expedition 67 Flight Engineers since April 27.

Last week, an uncrewed SpaceX Dragon spacecraft returned to Earth with over 4,000 pounds of station supplies and science experiments after more than a month of docking the Harmony module's forward port.