SpaceX cancels Wednesday launch to bring Starliner astronauts home over hydraulics issues

SpaceX has called off its plans to launch four people into orbit Wednesday night as part of a mission to bring back two crewmembers onboard the infamous Boeing Starliner.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule launch off the coast of Florida was scrubbed about 45 minutes before countdown, scheduled for 7:48 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

NASA and SpaceX decided against launching Wednesday over a ground issue on the hydraulic system for clamp arms holding the Falcon 9 rocket in place on the launch pad, according to a NASA livestream. The teams will assess when is the next safest time for the launch to proceed.

"Hatch is open, so we'll be handing you off to the closeout team for egress. Sorry, we couldn't get you off today, but we'll speak to you soon and look forward to trying it again," an official told the four astronauts onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule, who exited shortly before 8 p.m.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain replied: "Great working with you today, the whole team. I know it was a lot of work to try to get it to go, but like I said earlier, we'll be ready when the equipment is."

Crew-9 members Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have spent 9 months in orbit, could have returned to Earth as early as Sunday, March 16 had the launch gone as planned.

Launch was scheduled to dock Thursday morning

Had the launch gone according to plan, the spacecraft would have docked at the space station's Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the ISS, around 6 a.m. EST. That was to be followed by a hatch opening at 7:45 a.m. and then a welcome ceremony.

NASA previously delayed the Crew-10 mission twice after it originally anticipated getting off the ground in February.

NASA announced in December that the launch had been pushed to late March to give SpaceX more time to prepare a new Dragon capsule for liftoff.

The launch date was then moved back up to mid-March – most likely due to pressure from President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – when NASA decided to instead use a "previously flown" Dragon named Endurance.

What is the Crew-10 mission?

As the name suggests, Crew-10 is SpaceX's 10th science rotation mission to the International Space Station.

The missions, most of which last about six months, are contracted under NASA's commercial crew program. The program allows the U.S. space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the company's own vehicles, freeing up NASA to focus on its Artemis lunar program and other deep-space missions, including future crewed expeditions to Mars.

The Boeing Starliner is meant to one day become a second operational vehicle for NASA under the program, though its path toward certification remains fraught after its botched inaugural crewed flight test. In September, the Starliner vehicle undocked from the space station without its crew for a parachute-assisted landing in New Mexico.

Who are the astronauts of Crew-10?

• NASA astronaut Anne McClain, of Spokane, Washington, mission commander;
• NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, of Colorado, mission pilot;
• Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, a mission specialist;
• Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, a mission specialist.