Due to issues at the launchpad, SpaceX has postponed its mission to the International Space Station (ISS) originally planned for Wednesday (March 12th), which was intended to replace two NASA astronauts who have been stranded in space.
According to reports by the Associated Press, the new crew of astronauts must arrive at the ISS before Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams can return to Earth. They have been stuck at the space station for nine months, far beyond the originally planned duration.
SpaceX had scheduled the Falcon rocket to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center that evening. Less than four hours before the launch, technicians discovered a potential fault in a critical hydraulic system at the launchpad. This system is responsible for releasing one of the two support arms holding the rocket in place, allowing it to tilt back before liftoff. As the countdown started, engineers urgently assessed the situation.
At that time, four astronauts were already seated inside the spacecraft awaiting launch. However, less than an hour before liftoff, SpaceX ultimately decided to cancel the launch for the day. A new launch date has not been confirmed yet, but the earliest possibility could be a retry on Thursday evening.
After the new crew arrives at the International Space Station, astronauts from the United States, Japan, and Russia will take over from Wilmore and Williams. These two NASA test pilots were supposed to return to Earth in June last year aboard Boeing’s newly developed Starliner spacecraft. However, a major technical malfunction occurred during the spacecraft’s first crewed flight, forcing them to extend their stay at the space station.
The initial crewed mission of the Starliner was planned for just one week, but ultimately NASA decided to bring the crew back on an empty return trip and arranged for SpaceX to execute the astronaut retrieval mission.