Not Just Yet! Sunita Williams' Wait Extends as Technical Faults Delay SpaceX Mission
SpaceX has not yet announced a fresh launch date, but noted the next attempt could be as early as Thursday.
For the astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for over nine months, it may be a little longer wait to get back home as the launch of Nasa-spaceX is postponed.
The Falcon 9 rocket propelling the NASA-SpaceX Crew-10 mission was set to blast off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday at 7:48 p.m. (23.48 GMT).
But with around 45 minutes left on the countdown clock and the four member team strapped in, the launch was scrubbed because of a technical issue.
"There was an issue with the hydraulic system on the ground side," NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail said, adding that "everything was fine with the rocket and the spacecraft itself."
A ground system issue forced SpaceX to postpone a flight to the International Space Station on Wednesday, a mission that was meant to replace NASA's stranded astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunitha Williams.
The new crew needs to get to the Space Station before the two stuck astronauts can return after nine months, so far, in orbit.
Concerns over a critical hydraulic system were raised just a few hours before the scheduled launch. As the clock ticked down on the Falcon rocket's planned liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, engineers were checking the hydraulics used to release one of the two arms holding the rocket to its support structure. Already strapped in, the four astronauts - mission specialist Kirill Peskov of Russia's Roscosmos, pilot Nichole Ayers and commander Anne McClain from the US, and mission specialist Takuya Onishi of Japan's JAXA - awaited a final decision, which came with less than an hour before lift off, say news reports.
SpaceX has not yet announced a fresh launch date, but noted the next attempt could be as early as Thursday.
NASA had brought forward the rescue mission by two weeks after US President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, called for Wilmore and Williams to be brought back earlier than the US space agency had planned.
A scheduled eight-day stay on the orbiting station has dragged on for Wilmore and Williams as Starliner returned to Earth without them last year.
NASA has allayed fears over the safety of Wilmore and Williams and the two astronauts have been working on research and maintenance with the space station's other astronauts. Williams told reporters in a March 4 call that she is looking forward to seeing her family and pet dogs when she gets home.
"It's been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us," Williams said. "We're here, we have a mission, we're just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we're up in space and it's a lot of fun."
When the new crew arrives aboard the station, Wilmore and Williams and two others - NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov - can return to Earth in a capsule that has been attached to the station since September.
