SpaceX crewed mission postponed due to bad weather
SPACEX’S landmark launch to the International Space Station was postponed on Wednesday due to poor weather with around 20 minutes to go until takeoff.
“Unfortunately, we are not going to launch today,” SpaceX launch director Mike Taylor told NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
The next launch window is on Saturday.
Inclement weather threatened SpaceX’s launch into orbit of two NASA astronauts, a historic first for a privately-owned company and the first crewed mission to blast off from US soil in almost a decade.
A thunderstorm lashed the Kennedy Space Center in the morning, and the National Hurricane Center announced a tropical storm was forming off South Carolina, presenting a possible risk if astronauts are forced to carry out an emergency landing in the Atlantic shortly after takeoff.
Piloted by NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will head for the International Space Station. The mission has proceeded despite shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, with the crew in quarantine for the past two weeks.
Space Exploration Technologies
Corp was founded in 2002, tearing up the rules to produce a lower-cost alternative to human spaceflight that has gradually won over skeptics.
By 2012, it had become the first private company to dock a cargo capsule at the ISS, resupplying the station regularly ever since.
Two years later, NASA ordered the next step: to transport its astronauts there, starting in 2017, by adapting the Dragon capsule.
“SpaceX would not be here without NASA,” said Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, last year, after a successful dress rehearsal without humans for the trip to the ISS.