3 hours Ago By Sarah Hooper
Elon Musk previously claimed the pair were left in space for ‘political reasons’ (Pictures: Reuters)For months, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ return has been delayed as engineers struggle to understand the return capsule’s problems.Less than a month after Elon Musk promised to use SpaceX to rescue the pair he claims were held for ‘political reasons’, a launch pad problem prompted SpaceX to delay it again. The new crew needs to get to the ISS before Wilmore and Williams can head home after nine months in orbit.
Concerns over a critical hydraulic system arose less than four hours before the Falcon rocket’s planned lift-off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Wednesday.The rescue mission has been called off until at least Friday, NASA said.Already strapped into their capsule, the four astronauts awaited a final decision, which came with less than an hour remaining in the countdown, with SpaceX cancelling for the day.
The new SpaceX crew were ready to launch before it was called off (Picture: NASA)Wilmore and Williams have been stranded for nearly a year (Picture: CNN)As the countdown clocks ticked down, engineers evaluated the hydraulics used to release one of the two arms clamping the rocket to its support structure. This structure needs to tilt back right before lift-off.Once at the space station, the US, Japanese and Russian crew will replace Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, who have been up there since June.
The two test pilots had to move into the space station for an extended stay after Boeing’s new Starliner capsule encountered major breakdowns in transit.Starliner’s debut crew flight was supposed to last just a week, but NASA ordered the capsule to return empty and transferred Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams to SpaceX for the return leg.During an interview with Fox News in February, Musk said: ‘At the president’s request, we — or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed, kind of, to a ridiculous degree.
’Trump chimed in: ‘They got left in space. Biden.’‘Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,’ Musk claimed.
‘He was going to leave him in space. I think he was going to leave them in space,’ Trump claimed.The ship was ready to blast off before it was cancelled (Picture: NASA)Musk previously promised to help bring the astronauts home (Picture: Reuters)Dr Kirsty Lindsay, Assistant Professor in Rehabilitation Sciences within Northumbria University’s Aerospace Medicine and Rehabilitation Laboratory, previously explained what long-term time in space does to the human body.
‘Long-duration spaceflight is not good for the human body,’ she said.‘Floating in weightlessness means we don’t need to use our muscles or bones, so our bodies start to slowly reabsorb them.’Muscles that help to maintain our posture – think back, neck, calves and quadriceps – diminish by as much as 20% in only two weeks.
This also includes the heart, which doesn’t have to pump as hard up in the stars as there’s low gravity. The muscle will shrink about 1/40th of an ounce a week.Astronauts have to stay fit while on the ISS, which is basically kitted out with an entire gym, to combat this loss of bone and muscle mass, which is called ‘deconditioning’, says Liz Johns, the interim head of space exploration at the UK Space Agency.
‘This deconditioning is counteracted by a strict exercise regime that all astronauts keep up throughout their time on the International Space Station,’ she says.Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
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