KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX will try again Friday evening to launch the replacement crew to the International Space Station where the pair of NASA astronauts who flew up last summer on Boeing’s Starliner have been waiting for a ride home.
A Falcon 9 rocket on the Crew-10 mission is set to lift off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 7:03 p.m. topped with the Crew Dragon Endurance.
Flying up are four crew including NASA astronauts Anne McClain commanding the mission, pilot Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
If the launch goes up, the quartet are slated to arrive to the ISS at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, which would start the countdown for the Crew-9 mission to return home.
On board Crew-9 will be the two Starliner astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived to the station on June 6, 2024 for what was supposed to be as short as an eight-day stay. Instead, they have been on board more than nine months.
The Starliner suffered thruster failures and helium leaks on its test flight so NASA ultimately opted to send it home without crew leaving its two astronauts on board until they could fly home with the Crew-9 mission that didn’t arrive to the station until September.
Also heading back home are Crew-9 commander and NASA astronaut Nick Hague as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Crew-9 will be departing the station no earlier than Wednesday, although how long the return trip to Earth will be has not been announced by NASA. Some crewed Dragon flights have made the trip home in less than six hours, while others have taken more than a day.
For the launch attempt Friday, it comes two days after the first attempt, but an issue with the clamp arm that holds the Falcon 9 rocket upright at the pad forced the delay. It wouldn’t let go of the rocket.
Ground teams on Thursday completed an inspection of the support hydraulic system used for the arm and were able to flush a suspected pocket of trapped air in the system, according to an update from NASA.
“I am extremely proud of our NASA and SpaceX ground engineers and joint operations teams in quickly identifying and resolving this issue,” said NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich. “I’m especially proud of the team’s systematic approach throughout the countdown, analyzing data and making thoughtful decisions to ensure the integrity of our mission. Their commitment to both excellence and safety is a true testament to the strength of this integrated team.”
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a better than 95% chance for good launch conditions.
The first-stage booster flying on this mission is making its second trip to space, and will attempt a recovery landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1, meaning some parts of Central Florida may hear a sonic boom.
This is the fourth trip to space for Crew Dragon Endurance.
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