SpaceX, NASA to launch Crew-9 mission next month

(Reuters) -SpaceX and NASA said on Friday they plan to launch the space agency's Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than Aug. 18. 

  The announcement comes a day after the Federal Aviation administration cleared SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to return to space following a rare mid-flight failure earlier this month had grounded it. 

  The Falcon 9, the world's most frequently used rocket, was grounded after one rocket broke apart in space and doomed its payload of Starlink satellites, the first failure in more than seven years of a rocket relied upon by the global space industry. 

  NASA and SpaceX will embark on their ninth crew rotation mission to the ISS, with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket. 

  (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)