It was postponed due to an unfavorable weather forecast
NEW YORK, April 27. /TASS/. The manned Crew Dragon spacecraft of the American company SpaceX will land on May 1, a few days later than planned. This was announced on Monday by the press service of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Initially, it was expected that the splashdown of the ship called Resilience will take place on April 28, but due to the unfavorable weather forecast, the date of launching the device off the coast of Florida was decided to postpone. "The SpaceX Cre-1 mission with NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency employee Soichi Noguchi is now preparing to return to Earth on Saturday, May 1 at 11: 36 East Coast time [18: 36 GMT] in the Gulf of Mexico area off the coast of Florida," a statement on NASA's website said. It is noted that the reason for the postponement was the updated meteorological data, which predict " the wind speed exceeding the permissible for returning [to Earth]."
According to the new schedule, Crew Dragon will separate from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, April 30 at 17:55 East Coast time (00:55 Moscow Time on May 1). Until then, the astronauts will be closely monitoring changes in weather conditions.
The crew of the Crew-1 mission arrived at the ISS in November last year and joined the Russians Sergey Ryzhikov (commander of ISS-64), Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and American Kathleen Rubins, who have been on duty at the station since October 14, 2020 as part of the 64th main expedition and returned to Earth on April 17 on the lander of the Soyuz MS-17 manned spacecraft.
Last week, another Crew Dragon manned spacecraft docked with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, European Space Agency astronaut Tom Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. They will spend about six months in orbit.