NASA delays SpaceX flight to Sunday due to weather

NASA and SpaceX have delayed the launch of their first scheduled commercial crew flight by one day due to weather conditions that could threaten recovery operations at sea if the Dragon capsule were to interrupt flight during the ascent.

SpaceX will send four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday night instead of Saturday “due to land winds and recovery operations,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted Friday after a readiness review.

Crew-1 launch is now scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., At 7:27 pm Sunday, with docking at the station scheduled for 27 hours later. The trip will be the first regular rotation of SpaceX’s crew to the orbiting lab, three months after the company completed a large-scale test.

NASA has contingencies for crew rescue operations along the U.S. east coast and across the North Atlantic if an accident causes the Dragon capsule to eject from the rocket. This makes sea conditions important when planning the launch.

For Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and founder Elon Musk, the flight ends nearly two decades of efforts to transport people as well as cargo. Dragon and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket this week won NASA’s approval for regular crewed missions, making it the first vehicles the United States has certified to transport humans from the space shuttle, which has was withdrawn in 2011.

I hope people realize that this isn’t just another launch – it’s something much bigger, said Michael Hopkins, commander of the Crew-1 mission scheduled for Saturday, in a statement. message from NASA on Tumblr. “I hope this sets the stage, one of those first steps in getting us to the Moon and to Mars.”

Beyond becoming the US space agency’s first regular commercial launch, the Crew-1 mission is also the first NASA staffed mission authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration. The regulator assumes responsibility for public safety as the theft will be carried out by a commercial company.

NASA investigated Musk’s recent contact with key agency personnel on Friday after tweeting Thursday evening that he may be infected with the novel coronavirus. His health will not affect the launch, Bridenstine told the Washington Post, and Musk will not be attending the launch. Astronauts typically self-quarantine for two weeks before a flight.

Hopkins, 51, an Air Force colonel and test pilot, will be making his second visit to the space station, seven years after his first. He will be accompanied by three others on mission:

The four astronauts will push the space station to maximum occupancy when they join the three people already present. This will require changes to the way mission controllers plan the daily exercise program for each crew member. There will also be pressure on personal quarters where astronauts sleep and have time for themselves.

The space station currently has half a dozen crew berths, and NASA is completing work on a seventh. Until then, Hopkins will sleep aboard the Dragon capsule.

If that doesn’t work, a crew member could ‘camp’ in one of the space station’s modules, Johnson Space Center training officer David Wiedmeyer wrote Nov. 12 in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session. About the mission.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began its commercial crew program in 2010 to put a replacement for the shuttle into service. NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing Co. in September 2014. Boeing, which suffered delays in its work following a botched test flight in December 2019, plans a second unmanned test in the first quarter of the next year.

SpaceX ended its test flight program on August 2 when astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley returned from a two-month stay aboard the station.

Since then, the company has reinforced parts of the Dragon’s heat shield, made adjustments for the landing parachutes to deploy at a slightly higher altitude, and reinforced certain areas of the capsule so that it can withstand more seas. agitated.

Three months ago, when Behnken and Hurley splashed south of Pensacola, Florida, boaters approached the spacecraft. When the crew from the final mission returns in the spring of 2021, NASA has already announced a major change for the landing site: a larger flotilla of Coast Guard vessels to keep pleasure craft away.