Axiom 4 Launch Delayed Again, Now Set for June 19

NASA rescheduled the launch of Axiom Mission 4 until June 19 to fix a leak on the space station.

The launch of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station has been rescheduled to Thursday, June 19, 2025, by NASA. According to the U.S. space agency, NASA, along with Axiom Space and SpaceX, is closely reviewing launch dates no earlier than June 19.

The aged space station was discovered to have a leak, which caused the delay. The leak has since been sealed by engineers, ensuring that the next mission will be safe. The mission has already been postponed three times, which had been scheduled to launch last week from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. However, a liquid oxygen leak was discovered shortly before its launch, resulting in the launch being canceled. Peggy Whitson, a veteran former NASA astronaut, is in charge of the four-member crew. After launching on the company's Falcon 9 rocket, they were supposed to board a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to reach the orbiting laboratory. Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will be the pilot of the commercial mission, which will be led by Whitson, who works for Axiom Space as the Director of Human Spaceflight. Project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland from the European Space Agency and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are the two mission specialists included in the team.

The transfer tunnel's pressure has remained stable after the most recent repair. The pressure there used to decrease before this. This modification suggests that the small leaks may now be sealed. A new launch opportunity for the private astronaut mission will be possible as a result of teams reviewing the transfer tunnel configuration.