SpaceX Crew-10 mission to retrieve Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore delayed; when will NASA try again?

NASA and SpaceX on Wednesday postponed the launch of a crew for the International Space Station to replace two stuck astronauts - Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

The US space agency cited 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.

The launch, originally scheduled for 7:48 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2025, was intended to send a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying two US astronauts, one Japanese astronaut, and one Russian cosmonaut to the ISS. The delay pushes the next available launch window to no earlier than 7:26 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 13, pending resolution of the issue.

The US Space Force 45th Weather Squadron forecasts a greater-than-95% chance of favourable conditions at the launch site, though teams will also monitor weather along the Dragon spacecraft’s flight path.

The mission is critical to retrieving NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams, who have been stranded on the ISS for nine months following technical failures with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

Launched on June 5, 2024, for what was planned as an eight-day test flight, Wilmore and Williams faced delays after Starliner experienced thruster malfunctions and helium leaks, forcing NASA to deem it unsafe for their return.

The capsule returned to Earth without them last year.

Crew-10, the 10th crew rotation mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX, will also carry replacements to maintain staffing levels on the ISS.

If launched on March 13, the Crew-9 mission—carrying Wilmore, Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—would depart the station no earlier than 9:05 a.m. EDT on Monday, March 17, weather permitting at splashdown sites off Florida’s coast.

The mission’s timeline was accelerated by two weeks following pressure from President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who called for Wilmore and Williams’ earlier return.

Days after taking office, Trump posted on Truth Social, accusing the Biden administration of abandoning the astronauts and urging Musk to retrieve them. “I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space,” Trump wrote.

The intervention was an unusual political entanglement in NASA’s operations.

The agency had initially targeted March 26 for the mission but swapped in an earlier-available SpaceX capsule to expedite the process.

NASA officials said that Wilmore and Williams cannot depart until Crew-10 arrives to ensure sufficient US staffing for ISS maintenance.