Houston (Texas) [US], March 14 (HBTV): American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to leave the International Space Station by March 19 at the earliest, NASA has announced.
NASA stated that SpaceX Crew-10 is now targeting no earlier than 7:03 PM on March 14 for the launch of the Transporter-13 mission. The mission will carry four crew members to the International Space Station.
Mission managers had previously decided to postpone a launch attempt on Thursday due to high winds and precipitation forecasted along the flight path of the Dragon spacecraft.
Launch teams are also working to resolve a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
If the Crew-10 mission launches on March 14, the Crew-9 mission — with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — would depart the space station no earlier than Wednesday, March 19, pending weather conditions at the designated splashdown sites off the coast of Florida.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov will remain in Astronaut Crew Quarters at NASA Kennedy in Florida.
Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission of SpaceX's human space transportation system and its 11th flight with crew aboard, including the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station through NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
This mission will mark the 13th flight for the first-stage booster supporting this launch, which previously launched Crew-7, CRS-29, PACE, Transporter-10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, and six Starlink missions. Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Transporter-13 is a dedicated smallsat rideshare mission carrying 74 payloads. (ANI)