Four astronauts will undock from the International Space Station on Monday to return to Earth completing the Crew-2 mission launched earlier this year. The SpaceX Dragon capsule will detach from the flying outpost at 7.05 UTC (5.35 PM IST) and splashdown off the coast of Florida nearly eight hours later.

Nasa and SpaceX are currently working on a rotational nightmare on the space station as it tries to return four astronauts ahead of sending four others part of Crew-3. The crew rotation was initially set to happen onboard the space station, however weather conditions delayed the Crew-3 launch.

The Crew Dragon that will undock from the station will have astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide, Thomas Pesquet onboard. The four astronauts were launched to the space station on April 23, 2021.

As it undocks, the spacecraft dubbed Endeavour will perform a fly around manoeuvre to photograph the exterior of the International Space Station. Once it captures the flying outpost, the spacecraft will perform a series of departure burns to move away from the station. SpaceX detailing the process said that the Dragon will conduct multiple orbit-lowering manoeuvres, jettison the trunk, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for a soft-water landing.

CREW-3 LAUNCHED DELAYED TO NOV 10

The rotation of the astronauts and the handover which was planned to happen onboard the Space Station is not going to happen as SpaceX has delayed the launch of the Crew-3 mission to November 10. The liftoff of the Falcon-9 rocket with four astronauts to the station is likely to happen at 9.03 pm EST (7.33 am IST).

“Following Crew-2’s return to Earth, Falcon 9 will launch Dragon’s third long-duration crew mission to the Space Station as soon as Wednesday, November 10. The weather forecast is 80 per cent favourable for liftoff,” SpaceX said as it revised the launch dates.

The Crew-3 mission was first slated to be launched on October 31, when weather conditions delayed it to November 3. However, the November 3 launch was scrubbed due to a rare medical issue with one of the astronauts. While the agency maintained that it was not a medical emergency, it cleared that it’s not related to Covid-19. The last time Nasa delayed a scheduled launch over a medical issue involving the crew was for a Space Shuttle Atlantis flight in 1990 when mission commander John Creighton fell ill.

The Crew-3 flight will carry Nasa astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander; Tom Marshburn, pilot; and Kayla Barron, mission specialist; as well as European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will also serve as a mission specialist, to the space station for a six-month science mission.

This will be the first spaceflight for Indian American astronaut Raja Chari, who was selected as the commander for the mission in 2020.