Mission to Bring Back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore Stranded at ISS Delayed

Nasa has made an announcement that the Nasa-SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the ISS, which was supposed to return the two stranded astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, has been delayed.

The space agency has explained that the replacement crew must reach the space station before Wilmore and Williams can return to Earth following their nine-month orbital mission.

Technical Issues Discovered

Explaining the delay, Nasa explained that the engineers had discovered that there were some issues with a vital hydraulic system in the Falcon Rocket. This discovery was made less than four hours before the scheduled evening launch of the rocket from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center.

“There was an issue with the hydraulic system on the ground side,” stated Nasa launch commentator Derrol Nail, adding that “everything was fine with the rocket and the spacecraft itself,” as reported by AFP.

The four astronauts were already secured in their capsule and were waiting for the final verdict, which arrived with less than an hour left in the countdown.

SpaceX called off the launch for the day. While no immediate new launch date was announced, the company indicated the next attempt could occur as soon as Thursday night.

Upon reaching the ISS, the multinational crew comprising American, Japanese and Russian members will take over from the two astronauts, who arrived in June.

Crew – 10’s journey to space and crew-9’s return

Nasa astronaut Anne McClain will lead Crew-10 as commander, whilst Nichole Ayers serves as pilot. The mission includes Takuya Onishi from the Japanese space agency JAXA and Kirill Peskov representing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. For Ayers and Peskov, this will be their first space journey, while McClain and Onishi will be on their second mission.

As per the reports, as soon as Crew-10 will arrive at the space station, the team will initiate procedures for Crew-9’s departure. The space station will briefly host both crews simultaneously.