Maybe Thursday instead? A crew of four was set to head to the International Space Station on Wednesday, but NASA and SpaceX scrubbed the planned launch attempt of the agency’s Crew-10 mission due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket, the space agency reported.
SpaceX had been planning to launch the Crew-10 mission on a Dragon spacecraft with an assist from a Falcon 9 rocket. This is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which relies on SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.
What happened to the SpaceX Crew-10 launch?
NASA had planned the spacecraft’s liftoff for 7:48 p.m. ET Wednesday from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch complex has a storied history dating back to the Apollo moon program era of the 1960s.
However, the hydraulic system issue means that NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov had to exit the Dragon spacecraft and will have to try again on Thursday.
Read more: NASA’s ‘Stranded’ Astronauts Days Away From Coming Home
Thursday launch timing: How to watch
NASA reports that the next available launch opportunity is no earlier than 7:26 p.m. ET on Thursday from Launch Complex 39A, pending a review of the issue that stopped the launch. Launch coverage will begin at 3:25 p.m. on NASA Plus.
Should this launch happen on Thursday, the craft will dock with the ISS at 11:30 p.m. on Friday. It’s looking pretty good, weather-wise.
“The US Space Force 45th Weather Squadron predicts greater-than-95% favorable forecast for conditions around the launch site,” NASA said in its new statement. “Teams also will monitor weather conditions along the flight path of the Dragon spacecraft.”
Return of ‘stranded’ astronauts
Crew-10 has a bit more riding on it than a typical crew rotation mission. NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore infamously became long-term ISS residents after riding to the station on a test mission for Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule. The crew capsule encountered technical issues and was sent back to Earth without the astronauts.
Williams and Wilmore’s ISS stay unexpectedly stretched out for over eight months. Crew-10’s arrival means Willams, Wilmore, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will be able to hand off ISS duties to the newcomers and return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon sent up in September. That Dragon arrived with two open seats for the Starliner crew’s journey home.
If the Thursday launch happens on time, the Crew-9 members, including the much-delayed Williams and Wilmore, would depart the space station no earlier than 9:05 a.m. March 17, pending weather at the splashdown locations off the coast of Florida.
Both astronauts have insisted they don’t feel stranded, though that term has been widely applied to them in news stories and social media. But first, Crew-10 will need to arrive.
Add comment