Thwarted by a ground-based hydraulic system issue, NASA and SpaceX scrubbed Wednesday night’s Crew-10 mission roughly 45 minutes before launch from Kennedy Space Center.
Now, Crew-10’s next launch attempt to reach the International Space Station will take place at 7:03 p.m. EDT Friday. Mission managers decided to wave off a Thursday try because of high winds and precipitation forecasted in the flight path of the crew’s Dragon spacecraft, NASA Commercial Crew officials said in a tweet.
“Launch teams also are working to address a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A,” the tweet said.
NASA: Crew-10 scrub recap: Live updates from NASA’s SpaceX launch delay, successful Starlink launch
Crew-10 members: NASA astronauts Anne McClain (commander) and Nichole Ayers (pilot); Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (mission specialist); and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (mission specialist).
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After arrival at the ISS, their Dragon will serve as a ride back to Earth for Boeing Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — who have been on the orbiting outpost since June after their spacecraft malfunctioned on its maiden mission. They will be joined on the return trip by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbuno.
These four Crew-9 members will not depart before March 19, NASA reported, pending weather conditions at splashdown sites off the Florida coastline.
Roughly 3½ hours after Wednesday’s Crew-10 scrub, SpaceX crews launched a different Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites at 10:35 p.m. from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
After that launch, the rocket’s first-stage booster landed on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean — completing its 22nd mission. Its lengthy launch list includes CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and 17 Starlink liftoffs.
Hours before that Starlink 12-21 liftoff, Crew-10 donned spacesuits and departed NASA’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building about 4:30 p.m., then rode inside black Teslas for a caravan commute across KSC to pad 39A.
Then they entered the Dragon, completed communication checks, checked their spacesuits for leaks, rotate their seats into reclined positions, and performed other pre-launch tasks before the scrub was announced.
For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at[email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
