US, Russian space chiefs talk moon cooperation in rare Florida meeting

1/8/2025 6:22

An international crew of four astronauts had their planned launch to the International Space Station from Florida on Thursday postponed over bad weather, delaying a mission that had been watched by a rare gathering of senior Russian space officials in town for a meeting with NASA's acting chief.



The astronaut crew - two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a Japanese astronaut - boarded SpaceX's Dragon capsule sitting atop its Falcon 9 rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and were due to lift off at 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT).



But roughly a minute before launch, SpaceX mission controllers called a hold on the countdown because of stormy clouds that had been approaching the launchpad. The start of the astronauts' mission of at least six months on the ISS will move to Friday, NASA officials said.



The head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, is in Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the mission and he plans to meet acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy, who took on the space chief role this month and is also the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation.