German astronaut's ISS launch delayed by poor weather

Washington, Oct 30: The US space agency NASA said on Saturday that it would postpone its SpaceX mission to the International Space Station (ISS) from Sunday to Wednesday due to bad weather at the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

NASA said the launch was moved to Wednesday "due to a large storm system elevating winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean along the Crew Dragon flight path for the October 31 launch attempt."

German astronaut Matthias Maurer is scheduled to fly on the mission. The 51-year-old is set to be the first German in space in three years and the 12th German astronaut in space.

"I'm looking forward to traveling round the world every 90 minutes, with a fantastic view of the Earth. I'm really looking forward to watching our planet from up there," Maurer told DW.

Maurer will fly to space along with NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft named "Endurance," fixed atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Endurance will autonomously dock with the space station after 22 hours of flight.

Three of the four astronauts, including Maurer, will be on their first trip to space.

Six-month mission

The mission, titled "Crew-3," will last six months. The astronauts plan to conduct research in areas including material sciences, health, and botany, to help inform future deep space exploration and benefit life on Earth.

Among the research, an experiment to grow plants in space without soil or other growth media will be conducted. The astronauts will also try to build optical fibers in microgravity, which prior research has suggested will be superior in quality to those made on Earth.

Maurer plans to help operationalize the European Robotic Arm which is currently being installed on the Russian side of the ISS. He will also test out CIMON — an artificial intelligence assistant developed by the German space agency DLR, Airbus and IBM.

"It's an experiment which is really paving the way towards exploration," Maurer said.

The Crew-3 astronauts are expected to carry out spacewalks to help complete the upgrade of the station's solar panels. They will also be present for two tourism missions, one aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the end of 2021, and another by Space-X Axiom crew, set for launch in February 2022.

Source: DW