WASHINGTON, Feb 9, (V7N) – NASA has postponed the launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) by one day due to unfavourable weather conditions, the US space agency said on Monday.

NASA is now targeting February 12 for the launch of the Crew-12 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the launch window opening at 5:38 am local time (1038 GMT).

In a statement, NASA said mission teams decided to forgo a planned February 11 launch after reviewing weather forecasts along the Dragon spacecraft’s flight path. Weather conditions will continue to be closely monitored for February 12, with forecasts indicating possible improvement by February 13.

The Crew-12 mission includes US astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The crew remains in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of the revised launch schedule.

Crew-12 is set to replace Crew-11, which returned to Earth in January about a month earlier than planned, marking the first medical evacuation in the ISS’s history. Since then, the orbiting laboratory has been operating with a reduced crew of three.

The ISS, located about 400 kilometres above Earth, has been continuously inhabited for nearly 25 years. The aging space station is scheduled to be de-orbited and guided into the Pacific Ocean in 2030.

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