SpaceX, the ambitious private spacefaring company founded by former PayPal creator Elon Musk, has pushed back the date of its historic first mission docking mission to the International Space Station from April 30 on May 3, a SpaceX spokesperson told TPM via email. SpaceX now expects its Dragon cargo vessel to take off at May 3 at the earliest.
As SpaceX’s spokperson said in a statement:
After reviewing our recent progress, it was clear that we needed more time to finish hardware-in-the-loop testing and properly review and follow up on all data. While it is still possible that we could launch on May 3rd, it would be wise to add a few more days of margin in case things take longer than expected. As a result, our launch is likely to be pushed back by one week, pending coordination with NASA.
Elon Musk tweeted about the issue on Monday evening, writing: “Am pushing launch back approx a week to do more testing on Dragon docking code. New date pending coordination with @NASA.”
