Four astronauts hope Friday is the day they head to the International Space Station.
They are all ready to board SpaceX Spacecraft on the Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center in NASA, Florida. But with less than 45 minutes left in the countdown, SpaceX cancelled the press conference. The task controller cannot solve the hydraulic problem with the fixture arm that fixes it before launching.
The weather along the launch path looked good Thursday, so Friday was their next chance to step down.
Friday’s flight was a regular rotation of crew members on the space station, but it attracted more attention as it would eventually allow return to Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, two NASA astronauts, and a brief visit from two NASA astronauts in June unexpectedly extended to more than nine months (at least two days after Wednesday’s matte plane).
Here is other information about the mission, called Crew-10, because it is the 10th mission for SpaceX Ferrying to and from the space station on board.
When will it be released and how to watch it?
The four astronauts (two from Japan from NASA and one from Russia) are scheduled to be launched at 7:03 PM Eastern Time.
NASA broadcasts the published stories starting at 3 p.m., which you can watch in the player above. On the launch pad, the astronauts are now tied up and are performing pre-checks. Side Hatch closed around 4:50 pm, and the mission control team said the Rockets were ready to launch the Rockets around 6:15 pm and started 35 minutes before launch.
The forecast requires 95% favorable weather.
Alternative launch opportunities are available on Saturday at 6:41 pm, but the weather won’t be that promising. Its atmosphere is only 50% favorable.
Who plans to space on Crew-10?
Anne McClain of NASA is the commander of Crew-10 and Nichole Ayers of NASA is the pilot. The other two crew members are Takuya Onishi of Japan Space Agency Jaxa and Kirill Peskov of Russia Space Agency Roscosmos.
This will be the second space flight of Ms. Ayers and Mr. Peskov and Ms. McLean and Mr. Onisi.
Will Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore be rescued after being trapped in orbit?
Something
Not really.
Since late September, the spacecraft that will be brought back to Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been docked at the space station and can return to Earth at any time.
Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore started to the space station last June to conduct a test flight of Starliner, an astronaut capsule built by Boeing under a NASA contract. Due to advancement issues, NASA officials decided that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore would not return to Earth in Starliner. In early September, the spacecraft was revoked from the space station, reentered the atmosphere and landed in New Mexico without any problems.
Just like an airline scrambles to rebook passengers after the airline cancels the plane, NASA has to find seats at the return home of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore.
The next space flight was Crew 9, and no one got on the space a few weeks after Starliner left the space station. The two astronauts assigned to the flight were knocked down, and on the return trip, two seats were left in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and left for Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore.
Therefore, at any time after this, the Crew 9 capsule may bring back two astronauts, but this will understaffed space stations and affect scientific experiments, operations and maintenance.
NASA and SpaceX could have arrived at the CREW-10 mission earlier launching, but NASA officials believe Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore would have better be joining the space station staff and keeping the planned Crew-10 schedule.
When will Williams and Wilmore return to Earth?
If Crew-10 is launched today, it will dock in space late Saturday.
Crew 9 and Crew 10 astronauts will overlap in the space station for several days. About four days after the launch of the Crew 10, Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, along with NASA’s Nick Hague and Alexander Gorbunov, two astronauts who arrived with the Crew-9 – may be between March 19 and 19.
If the weather is bad at possible splash locations on the Florida coast, their accommodation may be extended again.
What do astronauts comment on their long-term accommodation?
“The Daily” host Michael Barbaro asked the astronauts in an interview published last month: “So, how do you describe how you find yourself without getting stuck?”
“It’s a great question,” Mr. Wilmore said. “I would say it’s work. It’s a great treat. It’s fun. There’s no doubt that I keep trying sometimes. But stranded? No, stuck? No. No.”
This was the third space trip for Ms. Williams, 59, and Mr. Wilmore, 62, who realized it might be their last. “We’re going home,” Ms. Williams said. “It makes you really want to enjoy every moment you’ve spent here.”
Michael Barbaro Contribution report.
