SpaceX Dragon Launch Pushed To May After Crew Dragon Explosion

The successful static fire test of Falcon 9 kick start SpaceX Dragon cargo as the 17th resupply mission of International Space Station (ISS) after the Crew Dragon explosion accident.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX was originally scheduled to launch the uncrewed Dragon cargo on April 26. However, due to the station and orbital mechanics constraints led NASA and SpaceX to postponed to schedule it on Tuesday which was later moved to Wednesday, May 1. The launch will be at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 40 in Florida.

"Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete — targeting May 1 launch from Pad 40 in Florida for Dragon's seventeenth mission to the @Space_Station," the official SpaceX Twitter post read.

NASA confirmed that the Falcon 9 rocket will launch at 3:59 a.m. EST.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 will be transporting the 5,500 pounds (2,495 kilograms) of deliveries for the ISS crew along with its Dragon spacecraft. Deliveries will be composed of fresh supplies, experiment hardware and other gear to the Expedition 59 astronauts present at the space station. It will be the 17th resupply mission for the ISS.

The rocket is expected to land back at the Landing Zone 1 at the Cape after the take-off, however, rocket booster of Falcon 9 will instead come landing on the SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship.

The modification is to give way to the company’s continued investigation about the explosion that occurred last April 20 at the landing zone during the testing of the abort engines for the Dragon Crew spacecraft version.

While the company is busy for the Dragon Cargo mission, SpaceX is also preparing for its big mission, the launch of Falcon Heavy megarocket.