Elon Musk suffered another embarrassing space setback after NASA and SpaceX scrubbed a pre-planned rescue mission of two stranded astronauts just before launch.
The Dragon spacecraft was expected to lift off at 7:48 pm EDT from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The team consisted of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers as the commander and pilot respectively. Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi also joined the team as mission specialists.
The crew, who were strapped in to their capsule and ready to launch, had hoped to reach Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stuck at the International Space Station since June last year when their Boeing Starliner capsule encountered massive technical problems and they were forced to move into the ISS.
President Donald Trump and “first buddy” Musk have repeatedly blamed the Biden administration for leaving the astronauts in space—though NASA engineers and the astronauts themselves have refuted that claim, citing safety and cost concerns as the key drivers of the delay.
“Biden was embarrassed by what happened, and he said ‘Leave them up there,’” Trump said during a March 6 appearance at the Oval Office. “Elon is right now preparing a ship to go up and get them.”
In January, Musk posted to X that Trump had tasked the SpaceX founder with a mission to bring Williams and Wilmore home.
“We will do so,” Musk wrote. “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
They echoed those talking points in an interview with Sean Hannity in February.
“They got left in space,” Trump told Hannity.
“Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk added.
While weather conditions were favorable and seemed to point toward a liftoff Wednesday evening, the launch was ultimately scrubbed shortly after 7 p.m., less than an hour before launch, due to an apparent hydraulic issue.
“Standing down from tonight’s launch opportunity of @NASA‘s Crew-10 mission to the @Space_Station,” Space X confirmed on X.
During a live broadcast and in a subsequent statement published to their site, NASA explained that there was a “hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp.” Clamp arms help keep the second stage booster in place to make sure that the entire rocket remains vertical while on the launch pad. As the mission nears lift off, the clamp arms open and pull away from the rocket, NASA’s broadcasters added.
It appeared that one of the clamp arms for Wednesday’s mission was not able to open fully, ultimately forcing the delay of the launch.
The crew were safely escorted out of the rocket following the mission’s stand down. NASA additionally noted that the next available launch opportunity is “no earlier than 7:26 pm EDT” on Thursday (March 13).
While the goal of the Crew-10 launch is to have its team take over the research work at the ISS from Crew-9 members aboard the station, it also will see the return of Williams and Wilmore–two of the members of the Crew-9 mission who have been stranded in the ISS since June last year.
The other half of Crew-9, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, arrived at the space station in September.
In their statement, NASA indicated that with a March 13 Crew-10 launch, Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Gorbunov will be able to depart the space station “no earlier than 9:05 am Monday, March 17,” depending on the weather in Florida.
