KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—The astronauts stranded on the International Space Station for more than nine months due to a botched Boeing test flight will have to wait a little longer to come home. NASA’s launch meant to pick the crew up was scrubbed on March 12 with a little more than 43 minutes left in the countdown.
SpaceX’s tenth manned crew to the orbiting laboratory as part of NASA’s commercial crew program remained on Launch Pad 39-A due to hydraulic issues with one of the clamps holding the Falcon 9 rocket in place. Everything else about the mission, including the launch vehicle, orbiting spacecraft, and crew were good to go.
The decision came down after ground crews worked for nearly three hours to mend the problem. Crew-10 commander Anne McClain responded patiently to the news, telling mission control, “We’ll be ready when the equipment is ready.”
The arrival of the four-person crew, which included McClain, Nichole Ayers (Pilot), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi (Mission Specialist), and Russia’s Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (Mission Specialist) was to signal the final countdown to the return of two astronauts who have been stuck on the space station for nine months.
It will essentially be the second half of a complicated rescue mission to get astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home, who had their eight-day mission significantly extended after technical malfunctions arose during their test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.
NASA officials made the decision to launch Crew-9 with two crewmembers, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, along with crucial equipment needed for their return, joining Wilmore and Williams who remained aboard the space station, seamlessly assimilating into the resident Expedition 72 crew aboard the station.
During that time, Williams served as a Commander of Expedition 72, handing the reins over to cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin during a special ceremony on March 7 in preparation for her return to Earth.
Now, Crew-10 sets off to officially relieve the crew of their duties. Upon arrival, they will join Ovchinin, cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Don Pettit in the final leg of Expedition 72.
Gorbunov, Hague, Wilmore, and Williams will all return in Crew-9’s SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule once they complete a handover period working to familiarize the new crew with ongoing science and station maintenance work. Their exact return is still dependent upon weather conditions and Crew-10’s arrival.
Typically a five-day process, NASA officials said the handover from Crew-9 to Crew-10 would be shortened to two days to preserve consumables.
NASA and SpaceX note that there are backup launch opportunities, including one in less than 24 hours, at 7:26 p.m. ET on March 13.
However, at this time, NASA has yet to declare if that launch window will be attempted. It depends on if the hydraulic system can be fixed by then.
