In order to give pre-flight data assessments additional time, SpaceX postponed the launch of its third commercial human mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday. Axiom Space, located in Houston, arranged the mission, which was rescheduled for Thursday pending further investigation.

The announcement of the delay came as the four members of the flight crew, consisting of veteran astronaut Michael López-Alegría, Italian Walter Villadei, Swedish flier Marcus Wandt, and Turkish Alper Gezeravci, were preparing to enter the orbital outpost for a two-week research mission.

The launch window from the historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center was rescheduled for Thursday at 4:49 p.m. EST, or approximately when Earth’s rotation propels the rocket into the station’s orbit to allow for a rendezvous.
Benji Reed, senior director of SpaceX’s human spaceflight programs, brought up two recent concerns that engineers were looking into during a teleconference on Tuesday night. These were the torquing of connectors that secure the Crew Dragon to the upper stage of the Falcon 9 and worries regarding the Crew Dragon’s parachute “energy modulator” straps.

Upon examining an unpiloted Cargo Dragon that had just returned to Earth from the space station, Reed stated that some straps that were stitched together and folded to secure the ship’s main parachutes during flight had not functioned as intended.

When the parachutes open, the folded straps are meant to move apart and gradually unravel, lessening the force of the inflation. The Cargo Dragon’s parachutes had several unstitched straps, which somewhat increased their loads but not enough to pose any issues.

The unstitching phenomena may have been caused by the problematic straps’ propensity to twist during installation, according to the engineers’ conclusion. In order to make sure there are no twists of this kind, the parachutes in the Crew Dragon that is ready for takeoff were examined and corrected.

Regarding the connections that secure the Crew Dragon to the Falcon 9, Reed reported that a few of them had been torqued—that is, tightened—to somewhat different degrees than what was called for. After exercising “an abundance of caution,” the connectors were changed.

“We’ll be completing our launch readiness review tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, and that will give us an opportunity to review all of the data and finalize everything for the flight,” he said. “Flying the crew safely is always our top priority, and we will only launch when we’re ready.”