SpaceX rescue mission scheduled to launch

Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams have been stuck in space for about nine months for what was supposed to be a little more than a week in space.  

Musk is trying to launch a rescue mission to save them, but if the facts are right, this could have been done quite some time ago, but Biden declined Musk’s offer.  

Biden Declined to Help 

Last week, Wilmore shook the tree stating that he believed Musk, who had recently stated that he offered to rescue the astronauts when Biden was in office, but the offer was declined.  

Wilmore stated, “I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual … I believe him.” 

Williams added, “All of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously, respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human space flight, for our nation.” 

Musk had stated that he believed Biden had declined the offer because the public would have perceived it as a win for Trump.  

Rescue Mission Scheduled 

With Trump now in office, he gave the thumbs up to Musk to schedule the rescue mission to bring Wilmore and Williams home.  

Musk then scheduled a mission on a four-seater craft that would take new astronauts to the space station and bring the two stranded astronauts home.  

Astronauts Takuya Onishi, Nichole Ayers, Kirill Peskov, and Anne McClain were chosen as the crew, and they would be traveling on the SpaceX Falcon 9.  

The mission was scheduled to land at the ISS on Thursday to relieve its current crew.  

Mission Scrubbed 

Just as I started to write this report, expecting to have a happy conclusion that the mission had been successful and the astronauts were headed home, bad news came across the wire.  

SpaceX announced that there was a hydraulic issue during the launch, the mission had been scrubbed.  

The good news is that the mission is expected to go forward on Friday, with an announced launch of 7:03 p.m. assuming they can get the issue fixed by then. SpaceX will carry the event live, starting its broadcast about 80 minutes before the scheduled lift off.  

In the overall scheme of things, adding two days to the rescue is not a big deal, but when you add that to the fact these two have been stranded for nine months and were expecting to already be traveling back home, well, I cannot even imagine the added mental stress they are going through right now.