The Crew-9 mission is expected to be launched by SpaceX and NASA in the middle of this month.

Currently scheduled for August 18, Crew-9 will be SpaceX's next astronaut flight for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS). Four astronauts from Russia's space agency, Roscosm, will be on board: mission specialist Stephanie Wilson, pilot Nick Hague, mission specialist Alexsandr Gorbunov, and commander Zena Cardman.

After an oxygen leak caused the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to fail on July 11, the mission still needs NASA's final launch permission. Although the rocket is certified for takeoff and has started launching SpaceX's Starlink satellites without a crew again, NASA wants to make sure the vehicle is safe for crews before the planned launch date of August 18.

Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, stated that they had been following the probe from the beginning to the end during a Crew-9 media briefing on July 26. 

NASA is hopeful that Crew-9 will be approved for launch once SpaceX replaces the sensor hardware on a new second stage, according to Stich's statement. The oxygen leak on July 11 was caused by the original sensor hardware.

According to Stich, they had followed that testing and will do the same on their end so that the sensor will be checked in the second stage test. He continued by saying that after going through all of the data, analysis, and certification, they'll be prepared to take off.

Crew-9, as the name suggests, will serve as SpaceX's ninth crew rotation on the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. Nonetheless, as part of the space firm's Commercial Crew Program, it will be the Dragon spacecraft's ninth crewed trip. The first was the demo flight Demo-2, which launched in May 2020 and sent the two astronauts to the ISS.