Washington, Aug 4 (IANS): A group of four astronauts is set to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aboard the company’s Dragon spacecraft on August 25.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station is set to depart at 3.49 am EDT (1.19?pm India time) on Friday (August 25).

Additional time was required for teams to complete pad readiness after SpaceX’s recent Falcon Heavy mission lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the US space agency said in a statement.

The adjustment also takes advantage of consecutive launch opportunities and deconflicts the station’s cargo spacecraft traffic schedule.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the ISS.

Crew-7 is scheduled to dock to the orbiting laboratory on Saturday (August 26), to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.

“If needed, Crew-7 has additional launch opportunities on August 26-27, said NASA.

Meanwhile, two cosmonauts are scheduled to begin the year’s 10th spacewalk next week.

Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are due to exit the Poisk airlock on August 9 to install micrometeoroid orbital debris shields and relocate hardware.