1 of 12 | A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sits on pad 39A after the launch of the Crew-10 mission was scrubbed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
March 12 (UPI) — NASA and SpaceX on Wednesday night scrubbed the Falcon 9 launch of a flight intended to retrieve from the International Space Station astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have spent nine months in orbit because of technical concerns about their Boeing capsule.
About a half hour before the scheduled 7:48 p.m. EDT launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, the mission was called off because of a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm, NASA said.
A new launch date and time wasn’t given.
A launch is still scheduled for later Wednesday at 10:20 p.m. for a second Falcon 9 from nearby Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. That mission is for Starlink satellites. This particular flight, which has been delayed three times, will target a landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
SpaceX or NASA didn’t give details about the hydraulic problem on the pad.
The four members who were strapped into their seats aboard the Dragon capsule: two NASA astronauts, commander Anne McClain and pilot Nichole Ayers, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi.
Crew members rode black Teslas for the ride to the rocket. Elon Musk owns SpaceX and is CEO of Tesla.
There had been at least a 95% chance of favorable weather conditions, according to launch weather officers with Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron.
“All aboard! The #Crew10 crew have now boarded and completed their communication checks inside the @SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in preparation for their 7:48pm ET launch to the @Space_Station,” NASA posed on X.
The launch is a joint mission of NASA and SpaceX.
Besides Wilmore and Williams, Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are scheduled to return to Earth, too.
NASA said in an online statement Thursday that the four returning astronauts completed more than 900 hours of research that included over 150 “unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.”
Wilmore and Williams have been in space since June 2024 after taking part in the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner.
Their mission aboard the ISS was only supposed to take a week, but the Boeing capsule intended to take them home experienced malfunctions and a fuel leak, so NASA and Boeing chose to leave them in space as their craft was returned successfully returned unmanned.
NASA announced in August that it planned to return Williams and Wilmore to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle in February. But NASA said in December the mission would be delayed to late March because of issues with a new Crew Dragon capsule SpaceX.