SpaceX delays flight to replace NASA's stuck astronauts after launch pad problem

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A motorboat pad occupation prompted SpaceX to hold a formation to the International Space Station connected Wednesday to regenerate NASA's 2 stuck astronauts.

The caller unit needs to get to the International Space Station earlier Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams tin caput location aft 9 months successful orbit.

Concerns implicit a captious hydraulic strategy arose little than 4 hours earlier the Falcon rocket's planned evening liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. As the countdown clocks ticked down, engineers evaluated the hydraulics utilized to merchandise 1 of the 2 arms clamping the rocket to its enactment structure. This operation needs to tilt backmost close earlier liftoff.

Already strapped into their capsule, the 4 astronauts awaited a last decision, which came down with little than an hr remaining successful the countdown. SpaceX canceled for the day. The institution did not instantly denote a caller motorboat date, but noted the adjacent effort could beryllium arsenic aboriginal arsenic Thursday night.

Once astatine the abstraction station, the U.S., Japanese and Russian unit volition regenerate Wilmore and Williams, who person been up determination since June. The 2 trial pilots had to determination into the abstraction presumption for an extended enactment aft Boeing's caller Starliner capsule encountered large breakdowns successful transit.

Starliner's debut unit formation was expected to past conscionable a week, but NASA ordered the capsule to instrumentality bare and transferred Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX for the instrumentality leg.

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an astronaut motorboat for NASA connected Wednesday night.