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The historic launch of SpaceX was delayed because of the weather
The official launch was announced at 4:17 Wednesday night that bad weather will prevent SpaceX rockets and capsules from taking off from the Florida launch pad, carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley on the first crew spacecraft to take off from US soil in nearly a decade.
There is a 50% chance the flights will be “deleted,” or postponed, because of the weather on Wednesday morning. Rain along the flight path and thunderstorms that develop around it are the main concerns of the launch, because Florida has faced heavy rain due to tropical disruptions over the past few days.
If a problem arises with the rocket after taking off, the Crew Dragon SpaceX capsule has the ability to escape the rocket and fly the astronauts to safety. But to ensure they will have a safe landing, SpaceX must monitor weather conditions through the vast swath of the Atlantic Ocean to prepare for possible scenarios that are canceled.
45th Space Wing, a military arm that oversees all East Coast rocket launches, monitors the weather and shares its information with NASA and SpaceX.
The launch of the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is planned to move forward over the weekend despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which has closed private and government operations throughout the US. NASA said it must continue its mission to guard the International Space Station, a giant orbiting laboratory, which is fully managed by US astronauts.
The space agency’s top official, Jim Bridenstine, also said he hoped the launch would inspire admiration and lift the general public during the ongoing health crisis.
On the ground in Florida, local authorities are preparing for an influx of spectators who are expected to gather at a nearby beach, which was recently reopened after weeks of being locked in the middle of a battle against Covid-19. But NASA does not welcome visitors to the launch site. Several dozen journalists were permitted to cover the launch from the press area at the Kennedy Space Center, but strict social distance policies and guidelines surrounding the use of masks were implemented. Bridenstine held most of the briefings by telephone, for example, and direct interviews were carried out one by one with the news crew.
This launch is also intended to be a kind of litmus test for NASA’s push to partner more broadly with the private sector.
SpaceX developed the Dragon Crew under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which, for the first time in the history of the space agency, submitted much of the design, development and testing of new human-ranked spacecraft to the private sector. NASA awarded a fixed price contract for SpaceX and Boeing to complete the work, but the decision was not without controversy, especially in the early days of the Commercial Crew Program. But if the SpaceX flight is successful, it could be seen as a big win for people at NASA who hope to rely more on similar contracts to help reach the space agency’s goals.
Bridenstine, for example, hopes to rely heavily on private sector partnerships to achieve the space agency’s ambitious goals to land US astronauts on the moon in 2024.
“In the end, what we are trying to achieve is to have many providers that compete with each other in terms of cost, innovation, and safety. And then NASA can become a customer, a customer of many customers, and we already know that this will save a lot of money in the long run long, “Bridenstine told CNN Business, Rachel Crane.
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