NASA and SpaceX’s four Crew-8 astronauts will be staying in their temporary home on the International Space Station (ISS) for a little while longer, as their departure has been delayed due to inclement weather. The return of the four crew members to Earth has already been pushed back once and was slated to go ahead today, Sunday, October 13, but the was called off this morning due to adverse weather conditions at the splashdown zone off the coast of Florida.
The four crew members — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin — make up the Crew-8 mission and will return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon. But with the hurricanes and extreme weather conditions affecting Florida recently, NASA officials chose to let the crew members remain in orbit rather than have them try to splash down in potentially difficult conditions.
“Due to unfavorable weather conditions off the coast of Florida, Dragon is standing down from today’s undocking from the Space Station. Teams will continue to monitor weather conditions for the next available undocking opportunity,” SpaceX wrote on X.
It is not yet known when the crew will be able to return to Earth, as no new departure date has been set. NASA has said it will give a weather briefing tomorrow morning with more information, so a date may be available then. It is not unusual for launches to and splashdowns from the ISS to be delayed due to weather, as any operation involving humans in space is treated with extra care. With 11 people currently on the ISS, the space station is busy, but not overcrowded, so the Crew-8 members can safely stay there until the weather clears.
Since Hurricane Milton hit Florida this week, several NASA operations have been affected. Many NASA missions launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, including the Europa Clipper mission. This uncrewed mission is set to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, but its launch was delayed this week as well. Now, that launch is scheduled to go ahead tomorrow, Monday, October 14.
This weekend has been a busy time for SpaceX as well, as it performed its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket including a historic first as it caught a returning Super Heavy booster.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.