Space travel Return mission for astronauts to ISS delayed
The return mission for the two US astronauts who have been stuck in the International Space Station (ISS) since June has been delayed. A new launch date was not initially announced after the flight originally planned for Wednesday evening (local time) was canceled.
13.03.2025, 01:13
13.03.2025, 01:16
SDA
The flight of the "Crew Dragon" of tech billionaire Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida was stopped shortly before take-off, as live images from the US space agency NASA showed. The reason was a hydraulic problem on the ground, it said.
The "Crew Dragon" is to carry the so-called "Crew 10" - consisting of the US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers as well as the Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and the Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov - to the ISS.
Almost ten months in space
She will take over from "Crew 9" - US astronaut Suni Williams, her colleagues Barry Wilmore and Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. After a few days together on board the ISS, "Crew 9" will then return to Earth, while "Crew 10" will remain in space until the fall.
Hague and Gorbunov have been on board the ISS since the end of September, while Williams and Wilmore have been there since June. They were actually only supposed to stay for around a week. However, due to technical problems with their "Starliner" spacecraft, NASA decided to bring the broken-down spacecraft back to Earth empty in September. The planned week turned into almost ten months in space for the two experienced astronauts, who had already been on the ISS several times before.
