world

NASA, SpaceX delay flight to retrieve stuck astronauts | Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore | N18G

SpaceX postponed the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) due to a hydraulic system issue with the ground support clamp arm at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The Crew-10 mission, which aimed to replace stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, was initially scheduled for March 12, 2025. However, the launch was scrubbed less than an hour before liftoff. NASA and SpaceX rescheduled the launch for no earlier than 7:03 pm EDT on March 14, citing high winds and precipitation in the flight path as additional factors. The astronauts involved in the mission, including Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers (NASA), Takuya Onishi (JAXA), and Kirill Peskov (Roscosmos), safely exited the Dragon spacecraft after the delay. The SpaceX Crew Dragon was also intended to ferry astronauts Williams and Wilmore back to Earth by March 19, but the mission’s timing was impacted by the delay.

first published: Mar 13, 2025 12:31 pm