One Team of international astronauts, scheduled to start mission to the International Space Station It will take command of NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, allowing them to return home after an unexpectedly prolonged and politically troubled journey. However, the crew will have to wait a little more .
The CREW-10 flight, part of the routine rotation of ISS teams, is operated together by NASA and Spacex. The takeoff was scheduled for the night of Wednesday (12) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but the company canceled the attempt to launch due to a problem in the launch platform’s land system.
The problem arose in a Hydraulic system used to control one of two supports that maintain the top of the rocket attached to the platform before takeoff.
“This is a ground problem. It was all right with the rocket and spacecraft, ”said NASA spokesman Darrol Nail during live broadcast.
Spacex reported earlier on Wednesday that it could make a new attempt to launch the Crew-10 mission on Thursday at 20:26 (Brasília time).
When the mission is launched, a Spacex Dragon capsule, coupled with a company’s Falcon 9 rocket, will take the four astronauts from CREW-10 to orbit: NASA nichole and Anne McClain, Takuya Onishi of Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Rosmos Kirill Peskov cosmonaut.
Once at the space station, they will spend a few days adapting to the orbital laboratory during a transition period with Crew-9 astronauts, a team that includes Williams and Wilmore, as well as NASA Nick Hague and Roscosmos Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Starliner scientists and the rest of Crew-9 will return to Earth as soon as this transition period is completed. The Crew-9 team was scheduled to decopulate the station on March 16 if the attempted launch of Wednesday had been successful. It is not yet clear how much this match can be postponed after the cancellation of the launch by Spacex.
NASA Astronauts have been in orbit since June last year, when they riding the manned inaugural flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
They expected to stay in space for about a week, but several problems detected during the trip to ISS, including helium leaks and propulsion system failures, led NASA to consider Starliner very risky to bring astronauts back on board.
While the Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions are part of NASA and Spacex routine operations to keep the international space station fully equipped, they have become the center of a public controversy involving statements by former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk-CEO of Spacex and now one of the leading presidential counselors-about the government of former President Joe Biden.
Although NASA announced in August – before the 2024 elections and Trump’s possession – which planned to bring Williams and Wilmore back to Earth in a Spacex spacecraft, Musk repeatedly said this year that Trump’s previous government rejected a Spacex offer to bring astronauts home earlier for “political reasons.”
Musk did not specify exactly what may have been proposed or for whom.
A prolonged stay in space
A former NASA senior employee told the CNN That Spacex never communicated such a proposal to the agency’s leadership – and that NASA would probably not have considered the idea, regardless of the offer.
If Musk made this proposal to someone outside the NASA leadership, the source pointed out: “I’m sure they would answer, ‘Well, it would cost us several million extra dollars, which we don’t have, for a new Dragon capsule and a Falcon 9’ rocket.”
At a press conference in August 2024, Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said the space agency “never considered this option,” referring to the idea of launching a separate Spacex mission to rescue Williams and Wilmore, instead of returning them to a previously programmed routine flight.
“It just didn’t make sense to accelerate a Spacex flight to bring Butch and Suni back earlier,” said Stich.
Still, Musk stated in interviews and social networking posts that he made the offer and was rejected by Biden’s White House – although it is unclear why he would not have brought the proposal to the NASA mission organizers.
A former White House employee did not respond to requests for comment.
When NASA announced in August 2024 that Starliner would return empty to Earth, Williams and Wilmore were reassocated to a Spacex mission. This meant that the pair would officially join the ISS crew and Crew-9, which was launched in September with two empty seats reserved for them.
Although Crew-9 was originally programmed to return in February, NASA announced in December that the mission would be postponed to the end of March due to problems with a new Crew Dragon capsule that Spacex was preparing for Crew-10 astronauts.
Last month, the space agency announced that Spacex would anticipate the CREW-10 launch date in a few weeks by choosing to use a reused Crew Dragon capsule for the mission.
NASA maintained its position that it was essential to launch the CREW-10 to ISS and allow a period of transition before Williams’ return, Wilmore and the rest of Crew-9 to Earth.
Williams and Wilmore comments
The decision to keep Williams and Wilmore at ISS, instead of launching an emergency mission to bring them back, was taken as part of NASA’s efforts to keep the space station fully manned. This allowed veteran astronauts to contribute to the orbital laboratory’s daily operations, as both had been trained before their test flight on Starliner to join the ISS crew as part of NASA’s contingency planning.
The space agency seeks to keep at least four representatives from the US and its partner countries aboard the season all the time.
For his part, Williams and Wilmore repeatedly claimed that they are enjoying their stay in space.
“This is my happy place,” said Williams in September. “I love being here in space. It’s just fun. You know, every day you do something that is work – between quotes – but you can do upside down. You can do aside, so it adds a different perspective. ”
They also tried to dispel the accusations that they were left behind by the previous government.
“This has been the narrative since the first day: stranded, abandoned, arrested – and I understand, we both understand,” Wilmore told Anderson Cooper, from CNN last month, when asked about the comments of Musk and Trump about the mission. “Help us change this narrative, let’s turn it into: prepared and committed, despite what you have heard. This is what we prefer. ”
Still, Wilmore fueled speculation about Musk’s allegations about a possible offer to bring astronauts back earlier during a press conference held from the International Space Station on March 4.
“I can only say that what Mr. Musk says is absolutely factual,” said Wilmore.
However, he added: “We have no information on this. What was offered, what was not offered, for whom it was offered, as this process happened – this is information that we just don’t have. ”
Remember: NASA advances return of “arrested” astronauts in space
Meet Crew Dragon, a ship that will “save” Starliner astronauts
*Update
This content was originally published in Spacex advance mission that would rescue astronauts stuck in space on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
