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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – A mission as part of the plan to help bring NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore home after nearly 10 months in space ran into technical issues on Wednesday, serving as another reminder of the challenges associated with space travel.
According to NASA, the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft was scheduled for around 7:48 p.m. local time from Kennedy Space Center but an issue with an arm on the ground launch system prevented the launch, leading to a scrub of the attempt.
The postponement was announced with more than 40 minutes left on the countdown clock, with officials providing no indication of when the launch system would be ready for a retry.
There are two remaining launch windows during the workweek, each about 20 minutes earlier than the previous day, but engineers have not indicated whether the necessary hydraulic repairs will take hours or days to complete.
Members of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission, made up of NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, are expected to remain on Florida’s Space Coast until an official launch date is set.
FUTURE OF NASA’S MEGA MOON ROCKET IN QUESTION AFTER MAJOR BOEING ANNOUNCEMENT
NASA astronauts Anne McClain, commander and Nichole Ayers, pilot, along with mission specialists JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are launching on the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station.
(NASA)
Astronauts Williams and Wilmore, who are aboard the International Space Station, have garnered headlines over how long their mission has been extended, even though their ride back to Earth has been at the space station since Sept. 29.
Since 2000, NASA has operated under the principle that it tries not to leave the space station without a significant contingent of American astronauts on board the flying observatory, and an early departure of Crew-9 would only leave one American and two Russians aboard.
The space agency states that once Crew-10 arrives at the space station, a short handover period will occur before Crew-9 prepares for departure.
The return of Williams, Wilmore, and NASA astronaut Nick Hague, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will depend on weather conditions off the Florida coast, with a splashdown not expected before March 17.
BOEING STARLINER RETURNS HOME WITHOUT ASTRONAUTS, MARKING THE END OF A TUMULTUOUS MISSION
Boeing’s Starliner, the spacecraft previously designated to bring Williams and Wilmore home, safely landed in the New Mexican desert in September, despite concerns over its operations.
The Starliner program now faces an uncertain future, with only one approved method currently available for astronauts to return to U.S. soil.
The space agency’s goals are likely to remain in flux until Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead NASA, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut with close ties to Elon Musk, has previously flown on two SpaceX missions.
Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft successfully returned home to Earth Friday night without astronauts, marking the end of the tumultuous journey that turned from an eight-day test mission into a three-month odyssey that left two NASA astronauts with an extended and unplanned stay in space