SpaceX on Wednesday delayed plans to send a new batch of astronauts to the International Space Station, a mission that would have paved the way for the return home of stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. NASA and SpaceX said the suspension was due to problems with ground equipment used to support the flight. The delay occurred less than an hour before the scheduled launch time, when the astronauts were already seated in the capsule. No timetable was given for when the launch mission will be rescheduled.
Personnel participating in the mission include two NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov.
NASA arranges personnel to perform continuous and rotating tasks on the International Space Station to help manage the operations and research of the space station. This means that the astronauts on the mission code-named "Crew-10" must first arrive at the space station and go through a handover period of about two days before Wilmore and Williams who are stranded in space can leave. After that, the two will board the capsule already docked at the International Space Station and return to Earth with the other crew members.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the International Space Station aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft last June and were originally scheduled to stay for about a week. However, because Starliner encountered technical problems on the way, NASA declared that it was too risky to use the spacecraft to bring astronauts home.
NASA said the two astronauts will return to Earth aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, extending Wilmore and Williams' stay in space by about nine months.