NASA flight director discusses curtailed spacewalk

NASA said Saturday that the launch of four astronauts on SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station has been delayed from Oct. 31 until “no sooner than early-to-mid November,” allowing time for SpaceX to resolve an issue with Falcon 9 rocket engines that halted a recent launch attempt with a GPS navigation satellite.

SpaceX technicians offloaded a Dragon cargo capsule from its recovery ship Thursday after returning the thrice-flown supply freighter to the Port of Los Angeles, marking the final planned return of a Dragon spacecraft to the West Coast.

After waiting for a Soyuz crew ferry craft to launch and dock, a commercial Cygnus supply ship arrived at the International Space Station with a fresh delivery of more than 5,100 pounds of provisions and experiments Sunday. The rendezvous culminated in the spaceship’s grapple by the space station’s robotic arm at 7:28 a.m. EDT (1128 GMT).