The return to Earth of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the ISS International Space Station for more than nine months, has been postponed again after the cancellation of the Crew-10 mission launch that was to relieve them, due to a technical problem at SpaceX. If the glitch is resolved quickly, a new attempt could take place as early as Thursday or Friday.
The astronauts have been waiting for re-entry since last June 2024, as due to technical failures, the Starliner capsule they arrived in had to return to Earth without them. Since then, NASA says it is studying solutions to be able to bring them home. This is the third postponement. Now, the launch that was scheduled for mid-March, and was to take place with the cooperation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has suffered another hitch related to a technical problem on the launch pad. In more detail, the NASA agency disclosed that it had decided in agreement with SpaceX, to “withdraw the agency’s Crew-10 mission to the ISS.” An official added that the problem is in the “ground-based hydraulic system” and that “the rocket and spacecraft have no failures.”
In an interview with Fox News on Feb. 18, Elon Musk had stated that the mission to bring astronauts back home would leave in four weeks. “We’re proceeding very cautiously,” he had said at the time, ”because we don’t want to be presumptuous, but we’ve brought astronauts back from the International Space Station before and it’s always been a success.” Now the astronauts who spent the Christmas holidays on the ISS could remain there for Easter as well, unless, the recovery attempts expected in the coming days go well.
