SpaceX Ready To Fly 29th Cargo Mission For NASA After Replacing Another Valve

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SpaceX and NASA are ready to fly the space agency's 29th cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with the Cargo Dragon spacecraft. The mission, CRS-29, will launch on the Falcon 9 rocket from Florida tomorrow evening after its launch readiness review ended favorably earlier today. SpaceX has launched more than three dozen crewed and cargo missions with its Dragon spacecraft, with tomorrow's mission being initially set to fly at the end of last week. The reason for the delay is as common as it can get, with SpaceX detecting faulty valves on this Dragon vehicle, which is set to fly for the second time.

SpaceX's Dragon program focuses more on crewed flights to the ISS since it is the only company capable of flying humans to space from U.S., soil. Right now, the firm has the firm has seven Dragon spacecraft in its fleet, with four of these being crew capable of spacecraft and the remaining dedicated to cargo flights like tomorrow's mission.

SpaceX's CRS-28 cargo mission suffered from an in space anomaly when a valve responsible for isolating thruster leaks to prevent propellant loss jammed. The mission, flown for NASA, successfully splashed down earlier this year, with NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stich explaining that the stuck valve did not create a risk for the mission since it was part of a backup system.

After CRS-28, the next Dragon mission was a crewed launch that put four astronauts on the ISS in August. The Crew-7 launch was initially scrubbed due to valve problems on the Crew Dragon spacecraft after SpaceX detected a nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) leak on