SpaceX and NASA announced earlier today that the fifth cargo mission to the International Space Station scheduled for tomorrow has been once more delayed. According to NASA, the delay will allow SpaceX engineers to investigate problems that arose after a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket, though the space agency did not elaborate on the nature of the problems.
Under the new schedule, Dragon would launch on January 6th at 6:18 am Eastern time and rendezvous with the ISS on January 8th. In case the launch window is missed, a second window will be available on January 7th. Even though the last attempt resulted in the explosion of an Antares rocket, NASA stressed that the delay will not impact the crew of the station, or its supply of food and fuel, nor will it impact the science cargo being delivered by Dragon once it does lift off.
Tomorrow’s launch would have marked the first attempt by private space company SpaceX to propulsively land the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket onto an autonomous spaceport drone with the intent to salvage it for later reuse.