NASA and SpaceX yesterday delayed the launch of a replacement crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station that would have set in motion the long-awaited homecoming of US astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
Nasa had been set to launch a SpaceX rocket from Florida carrying a replacement crew for the International Space Station in a mission that would set up the return to Earth of Wilmore and Williams – stuck in space for nine months after a trip on Boeing’s faulty Starliner.
The launch was called off due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket, Nasa said in a statement.
Launch teams are working to address the issue, it said in another statement.
Nasa said it is now targeting a launch no earlier than 7.03pm EDT (2303 GMT) today after mission managers put off a launch attempt yesterday because of high winds and rain forecast in the flight path of Dragon.
With a Friday Crew-10 launch, the Crew-9 mission with astronauts Wilmore and Williams would depart the space station on Wednesday, it said. The US space agency had moved up the mission by two weeks after President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, called for Wilmore and Williams to be brought back earlier than Nasa had planned.
A planned eight-day stay on the orbiting station has dragged on for Wilmore and Williams, both veteran astronauts and US Navy test pilots. Starliner returned to Earth without them last year.
SpaceX’s rocket had been scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 7.48pm ET (2348 GMT) with a crew of two US astronauts and one astronaut each from Japan and Russia.
Wilmore and Williams have been working on research and maintenance with the space station’s other astronauts and have remained safe, according to Nasa.
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