Crew-3, made up of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, was initially scheduled to be launched on 31 October 2021. This was delayed to 3 November due to weather, before being further delayed due to a minor medical issue with a crew member.
Mission teams have now decided to return Crew-2 from the Space Station before launching Crew-3, due to weather considerations for both launch and recovery operations.
Crew-2 includes ESA astronaut and current International Space Station commander Thomas Pesquet, alongside NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and Japanese Aerospace Agency JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
Crew-3 in their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endurance. Credit: SpaceX
The earliest possible opportunity for Crew-2 to undock from the Space Station to begin their trip back to Earth is now Monday, 8 November, 19:05 GMT/20:05 CET for a splashdown on Tuesday, around 03:33 GMT/04:33 CET.
The earliest possible opportunity for the launch of Crew-3 is now Thursday, 11 November, 02:03 GMT/03:03 CET.
For more information around launch and landing considerations, see NASA’s Commercial Crew blog. For more about Thomas and Matthias’s missions aboard the International Space Station see the Alpha and Cosmic Kiss mission pages on ESA’s website.