spacetoday.net: SpaceX delays Dragon launch

Posted: Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 6:11 AM ET (1011 GMT)
SpaceX Dragon illustration (SpaceX)

SpaceX announced late Monday that it will push back the launch of its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station by about a week to allow time for additional tests. SpaceX had been planning to launch the Dragon spacecraft on April 30 on a demonstration mission to approach and potentially berth with the ISS, and NASA and SpaceX had tentatively approved the launch date a week earlier. However, SpaceX announced on Monday that it decided to delay the launch by about a week to perform additional tests on the software used by Dragon to approach the ISS. No new launch date has been announced, but will likely be after the launch of an Atlas 5 carrying a military satellite now planned for May 3. The Dragon flight is a test flight under SpaceX's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) award from NASA and, if successful, will allow the company to begin regular commercial cargo flights to the ISS later this year.