WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The SpaceX Crew-10 mission to bring back a pair of NASA astronauts who have been held up on the International Space Station since June has been delayed to Friday.
Dubbed Crew Dragon Endurance, the SpaceX Dragon 2 reusable spacecraft, was scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Thursday, but mission managers decided to wave off the launch attempt due to high winds and precipitation forecast in the flight path of Dragon.
NASA said it is targeting no earlier than 7:03 p.m. ET Friday to launch four crew members to the International Space Station.
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.
The ISS-bound latest batch includes two active-duty U.S. military officers - Army Col. Anne McClain and Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers - along with Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Once aboard the ISS, some of the Crew Dragon Endurance team will remain for a scheduled six months.
While aboard, the team is set to conduct more than 200 experiments, including organoid studies for disease treatments and plant growth tests in microgravity.
They will also try out leg pressure cuffs to help with fluid shifts in space - work that supports NASA's Artemis program and benefits life on Earth.
The mission marks the 10th crew rotation for NASA's Commercial Crew Program and SpaceX's 17th crewed orbital flight.
The team effort has a goal of bringing NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back home after they were forced to stay back in the space station for nine months.
They, along with another NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would depart the space station no earlier than Wednesday, March 19, pending weather at the splashdown locations off the coast of Florida, NASA said in an update.
Wilmore and Williams have been living and working aboard the station since docking on June 6, contributing to the expedition crew's research and maintenance activities, while helping ground teams collect critical data for long-duration Starliner flights to the orbiting complex.
The astronauts were supposed to return to earth on June 14, but after encountering technical issues, it has been delayed.
Upon arrival, NASA and Boeing identified a number of helium leaks and thruster issues on the Starliner, forcing the astronauts to stay on the ISS.
By September, issues with the spacecraft led to NASA opting to send the vessel back to earth unmanned and leaving Wilmore and Williams waiting for the ideal situation.
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