Lightning risk scrubs SpaceX rocket launch
CAPE CANAVERAL — The launch of a SpaceX rocket ship with two NASA astronauts on a historymaking flight into orbit was called off with 16 minutes to go in the countdown because of the danger of lightning.
Liftoff is rescheduled for Saturday.
The commercially designed, built and owned spacecraft was set to blast off in the afternoon for the International Space Station, ushering in a new era in commercial spaceflight and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade.
But thunderstorms for much of the day threatened to force a postponement, and the word finally came down that the atmosphere was so electrically charged that the spacecraft with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard could get hit by a bolt of lightning.
“No launch for today — safety for our crew members @Astro—Doug and @AstroBehnken is our top priority,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted, using a lightning emoji.
Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian rockets to carry astronauts to and from the space station.
Space veterans Hurley and Behnken were scheduled to ride into orbit aboard the brandnew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, taking off from the same launch pad used during the Apollo moon missions a halfcentury ago.
Smiling, waving and giving the traditional thumbsup, the two men said farewell to their families — exchanging blown kisses and pantomiming hugs for their young sons from a coronavirussafe distance — before setting out for the pad in a gullwing Tesla SUV, another product from SpaceX’s visionary founder, Elon Musk.
Both President Trump and Vice President Mike
Pence arrived to watch the liftoff.
The flight would have marked the first time a private company sent humans into orbit.
It also would have been the first time in nearly a decade that the United States launched astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil. Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.
During the day, thunder could be heard as the astronauts made their way to the pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and a tornado warning was issued moments after they climbed into their capsule.
“We’re launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. We haven’t done this really since 2011, so this is a unique moment in time,” Bridenstine said.