(NewsNation) — NASA and SpaceX‘s Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station to relieve the current crew, which includes two astronauts who were crewing a test flight of Boeing’s Starliner, was scrubbed Wednesday evening.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket would have carried two American astronauts, a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut on the Dragon Endurance spacecraft.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain is leading the crew on the mission, accompanied by NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. They all exited the spacecraft Wednesday evening.
Originally set to blast off from Kennedy Space Center at 7:48 p.m. ET, the launch was canceled because of a “hydraulic ground issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket,” NASA said.
There are additional launch windows available Thursday and Friday. SpaceX’s website says there’s a backup opportunity 7:26 p.m. ET Thursday. It is set to dock at 11:30 p.m. on Friday.
The U.S. Space Force 45th Weather Squadron predicts “greater-than-95%” favorable forecast for conditions around the launch site, per NASA.
The mission was originally set to go on a Crew Dragon spacecraft, but because of delays, NASA turned to the Dragon Endurance instead.
Once on board, there will be a handover period between Crew-10 and Crew-9, which has been shortened due to concerns about commodities on the ISS after an upcoming supply mission experienced an issue.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told NewsNation handovers are routine.
“A crew of four is going up. It has to dock. It has to meet up with the space station dock. The crew gets out, they hug each other, and then the other crew gets in,” he said.
Crew-9 will then return along with Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They would depart the space station no earlier than 9:05 a.m. Monday, NASA said, pending weather at splashdown locations off the Florida coast.
Wilmore and Williams blasted off on Starliner last summer for a mission initially set for two weeks. However, after multiple issues with Starliner, including helium links in the service module and docking issues, NASA deemed it unsafe for them to return.
The two have pushed back against claims that they are “stranded” in space, saying they’re thrilled to get to spend more time in orbit.
Starliner returned to Earth safely in an autonomous flight, but it’s not clear if NASA will move forward with plans to use the spacecraft for crewed missions.