SpaceX astronaut launch scrubbed due to technical issue

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A Wednesday evening SpaceX launch, intended to send a new crew to the space station, was scrubbed less than an hour before launch due to a hydraulics issue at the launch pad.

The Crew-10 launch from Kennedy Space Center was set to clear the way for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to come home, ending their unexpected nine-month stay aboard the orbiting outpost. But the so-called stranded astronauts will have to wait a little longer.

It was not immediately clear when the next attempt would happen, but it could come as soon as Thursday evening.

The Crew-10 astronauts were already strapped in when the call came to stand down because of the issue with the transporter-erector, part of the structure that holds the rocket at the pad.

Crew-10 launch

Who’s aboard:

Two U.S. astronauts, a Japanese astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut will ride the SpaceX Crew Dragon ‘Endurance’ to the space station, where they’ll spend several months in space:

• Commander: Anne McClain, NASA
• Pilot: Nichole Ayers, NASA
• Mission specialist: Takuya Onishi, JAXA
• Mission specialist: Kirill Peskov, Roscosmos

NASA’s ‘stranded’ astronauts

Much of the buzz around this launch focuses on Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts that some – including President Donald Trump – have referred to as "left in space."

The backstory:

Wilmore and Williams launched to the station in June on a test flight of Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule. Their trip was supposed to last eight days, but after the Starliner suffered helium leaks and thruster issues, NASA opted to have the astronauts stay on the station and return home later aboard a SpaceX capsule.

NASA shuffled its manifests to make room for Wilmore and Williams to return when the next crew rotation ended, which at the time was scheduled for February of 2025. In the meantime, the duo kept busy with experiments and work on the station, even taking a spacewalk together earlier this year.

The astronauts’ return date eventually slipped to late March, then moved slightly earlier when SpaceX opted to delay the debut of a new capsule being built for Crew-10, swapping it for a previously flown version. 

Dig deeper:

President Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have publicly blamed the Biden administration for leaving Williams and Wilmore "stranded," though, in an emergency, the astronauts could have come home at any point.

Musk said – without offering evidence – that the Biden administration turned down a SpaceX offer to get the astronauts last year. Trump told FOX News that the decision was made "for political reasons."

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When asked last week, Wilmore said, "politics is not playing into this at all," insisting no such early-return offer ever made it to them in space. However, he added that he believes Musk, calling him "absolutely factual." 

Big picture view:

While the Crew-10 launch – and the Starliner astronauts' return – will mean business as usual at the space station, the fate of Boeing’s Starliner program is not clear.

While the troubled Starliner capsule safely returned to Earth autonomously in September, the company has stayed quiet about its future. The failed mission was a black eye for Boeing and the latest in a string of issues for the Starliner program.

NASA used taxpayer funds to help Boeing develop Starliner and to help SpaceX develop Crew Dragon with the goal of having redundant space taxis for its astronauts. Should Boeing cancel the Starliner program, SpaceX would be the only launch provider – other than the Russians – capable of ferrying astronauts to the station.

What's next:

Whenever the new crew arrives, they'll join the existing astronauts, helping create the Expedition 73 crew. More than 200 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations are planned during their mission, which is scheduled to last for around 150 days.

Meanwhile, NASA is targeting no earlier than March 16 for the Crew-9 Dragon capsule ‘Freedom’ to undock and splash down off the coast of Florida, bringing home Crew-9 astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and – finally – Williams and Wilmore.

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