NEW YORK, August 4. /TASS/. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX postponed until August 25 the launch of Crew Dragon spacecraft with a multinational crew that includes Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.
The blastoff was previously scheduled for August 21.
"The target launch date for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station now is 3:49 a.m. EDT (10:49 a.m. Moscow time) Friday, Aug. 25," the organization said on its website.
NASA emphasized that the launch may be further postponed until August 26 or 27.
Borisov will be part of the next crewed mission to the ISS (Crew-7) under the cross-flight program. Other crew members include NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
In the first half of 2024, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin is expected to fly to the ISS on the Crew-8 mission.
On July 15, 2022, Russian state aerospace corporation Roscosmos reported the signing of an agreement on cross flights of Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts to the ISS, which provides for three flights of Russian crew members on American spacecraft. Later, the program was extended by one more mission.
The current crew on board the ISS includes Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin (TASS special correspondent on the ISS), Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, as well as United Arab Emirates’ astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi.