With the countdown within 45 minutes of launch, NASA called off an attempt to send the next crew to the International Space Station Thursday evening to allow more time to troubleshoot a ground system hydraulics issue. If the problem can be resolved in time, NASA and SpaceX will make another attempt to launch the crew Friday evening.
The scrub will add at least two more days to the eventual return to Earth of Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams , along with two other outgoing space station crew members.
Crew-10 commander Anne McClain, pilot Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov were strapped in and ready for blastoff from historic pad 39 at the Kennedy Space Center at 7:48 p.m. EDT Wednesday.
But throughout the final few hours of the countdown, SpaceX engineers were troubleshooting an apparent problem with one of two clamp arms that hold the Falcon 9 rocket to its launch support gantry. Hydraulics are used to retract the two clamps prior to launch, and while the system appeared to be working normally, it wasn't clear whether one of the arms would retract fully.
A launch opportunity Thursday was ruled out due to expected high winds and to give engineers more time to assess data and determine what, if any, repairs are needed. If the hydraulics problem can be resolved in time, NASA and SpaceX could be ready to press ahead with a launch attempt at 7:03 p.m. Friday.
Whenever Crew-10 takes off, rendezvous and docking with the space station is expected the following day.
Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Crew-9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams, along with cosmonauts Alexsey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who were launched last September aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
McClain and her crewmates will spend two days getting briefed by Crew-9 on the intricacies of space station operations before Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams undock on March 19 for their return to Earth . The normal "handover" period is five days or so, but mission managers shortened it this time around to maintain the lab's food reserves.
While the ongoing saga of the "stranded" Starliner astronauts has overshadowed the Crew-10 mission, McClain said she and her crewmates began training for their mission in 2023 and they were all eager to finally get into space. McClain and Onishi are space station veterans while Ayers and Peskov are making their first flight.
All four are veteran military or commercial pilots. Before joining NASA, McClain, an active-duty Army colonel, served as a combat helicopter pilot while Ayers, an Air Force major, is a veteran F-22 Raptor pilot. Onishi served as a commercial pilot in Japan, flying Boeing 767 jetliners, and Peskov is an experienced commercial 757 pilot.
"We're going to have planned and unplanned maintenance to keep the space station running," McClain said. "We have a plethora of science experiments, both inside and outside of the space station. We have spacewalks. We have visiting vehicles (and) the potential of (hosting) private astronaut missions."
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