New Delhi, Jun 20: The launch of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), has been postponed once again on Friday, as NASA and its partners continue technical evaluations.

The mission, a collaboration between NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX, will no longer launch on Sunday, June 22, with a new date to be announced in the coming days.

“@NASA, @Axiom_Space, and @SpaceX continue reviewing launch opportunities for Axiom Mission 4. NASA is standing down from a launch on Sunday, June 22, and will target a new launch date in the coming days,” the International Space Station wrote in a post on X.

The latest delay follows continued assessments of recent repair work on the Russian Zvezda service module’s aft section aboard the ISS.

The mission had originally been scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 29 but has since been rescheduled multiple times, first to June 8, then to June 10, June 11, and most recently June 19, before this latest postponement.

The Ax-4 mission marks another milestone in the growing field of commercial spaceflight, bringing together international collaboration and private-sector innovation.

The Ax-4 crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A. This mission is seen as a significant step in the commercialization of human spaceflight and features a diverse, international crew led by mission commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and the current Director of Human Spaceflight at Axiom Space.

Accompanying Whitson are Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), serving as a pilot, Sławosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland, and Tibor Kapu from Hungary, both flying as mission specialists under the European Space Agency (ESA).

During the mission, the crew will carry out various scientific experiments. Notably, Shukla will lead research in food and space nutrition, developed under a partnership between ISRO, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and NASA. These studies aim to advance sustainable life-support systems, a key area for long-duration space exploration.

(IANS)

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