BENGALURU: Just two days before the launch of the most-awaited Axiom-4 space mission, scheduled for June 22, 2025, Axiom Space has announced that the mission has now been 'postponed'.
Scientists in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who are closely associated with the mission, told The New Indian Express that the mission has been indefinitely postponed and that they were calling back their two astronauts in Florida for training and launch of the mission.
ISRO had deputed two of its astronauts, who are also a part of the Gaganyaan mission, for the Ax-4 mission -- Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who was the mission pilot, along with Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, who was the back-up crew member.
“As the mission has been indefinitely postponed the astronauts will be returning. There are many technical issues which need to be addressed before the mission is launched. Since NASA has pulled out of the mission, further communication will take time,” said the ISRO scientist, not wanting to be named.
Axiom Space, the space agency which was launching the 14-day manned mission to the International Space Station with four astronauts from the U.S, Poland, Hungary and India, did not commit on the next launch date.
In a statement Axiom said that NASA has decided to stand down from the launch that was scheduled for June 22, 2025.
“The space agency needs more time to evaluate the ISS operations following the recent repair works in the rearmost segment of the orbital laboratory of the Zvezda service module. Since the space stations are interconnected and interdependent, NASA wants to ensure that the station is ready for any additional crew members. More time is needed to evaluate everything,” Axiom said.
The space agency informed that till then the astronauts would continue to remain in quarantine, and the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft are standing on the launch pad at the Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Earlier on June 14, ISRO had announced that the mission will launch on June 19, 2025. However, later in the day, the date was withdrawn and ISRO said the next launch date will be announced soon.
The launch was initially targeted for May 29, but was deferred to June 8, 2025, because of the observations in the electrical harness in the Crew Dragon Module.
The launch was then postponed to June 9 due to the delay in the preparedness of the Falcon-9 vehicle.
The mission was later postponed to June 10 due to poor weather conditions at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Also during inspections and hot fire tests that were conducted on June 8, the team had observed oxygen leak in the engine bay. Anomalies in one of the engine actuator was also observed.
The launch was then rescheduled to June 11, anticipating that the issues would be addressed.
On June 11, NASA and ISRO flagged their concern to Roscosmos- Russia’s Space Agency, to evaluate the new pressure signature in the Zvezda Service Module in the ISS due to the air leak.
During discussions, ISRO had recommended to Axiom Space, NASA and SpaceX to carry out in-situ repairs or replacements and conduct a low temperature leak test to validate the performance of the system before going ahead with the launch.
