Defective Musk rocket

Astronauts still stuck on the ISS

(Bild: KameraOne)

The return mission for the two US astronauts who have been stuck in the International Space Station (ISS) since June has been delayed. A rocket belonging to tech billionaire Elon Musk failed to work. A new date has not yet been announced.

The flight of the "Crew Dragon" of the private space company SpaceX from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday evening (local time), 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 was reported. A new launch date was not initially announced. The 'Crew Dragon' is to fly the so-called 'Crew 10' - consisting of US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers as well as Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov - to the ISS.

She is to 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.