Lightning scrubs SpaceX launch

Cancellation pushes Dragon’s voyage to Saturday evening

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lightning on the Space Coast caused SpaceX to scrub a launch that had been set for Thursday night.

That sets up a second attempt to send up a once-used cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station this weekend.

A message on the company’s YouTube page said the launch was “scrubbed due to weather.”

The scrub pushes the launch window back to Saturday at 5:07 p.m. Eastern time.

The Dragon will be loaded with nearly 6,000 pounds of supplies for astronauts, along with sci- ence experiments and research investigations.

The spacecraft is designed to some day deliver human astronauts into space from the U.S.

The Dragon will stay docked to the International Space Station for about a month once it launches, before it returns to Earth and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

This specific spacecraft was first used to deliver supplies to the space station in 2014.

A U.S. Air Force report showed a 70 percent chance of favorable weather for the launch.

It will mark the 100th from Launch Complex 39A, which hosted the Apollo 11 mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon, in 1969.

Complex 39A also hosted the first and last space shuttle missions in 1981 and 2011, respectively.