WRITTEN STORY FOR CBS NEWS AND USED WITH AUTHORIZATION
The launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station was delayed 24 hours until Friday due to bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean, where the crew could be forced to give up in an emergency, NASA announced on Wednesday.
Originally scheduled to take off from Kennedy Space Center on Thursday at 6:11 a.m. EDT, the flight was reset to 5:49 a.m. Friday, approximately when the Earth’s rotation carries the 39A pad directly below the space station’s orbital path – a requirement for the spaceship trying to meet a target in low Earth orbit.
“We will have to postpone one day, we will not be able to launch tomorrow morning,” space director Bob Cabana told reporters. “Although the weather will probably look great here at the launch site, we are worried about those low winds and wave heights in case of an abortion if that happens.
“As soon as this front passes, it will be absolutely beautiful on Friday morning, we will go out and do it again.”
If all goes well on Friday, Commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japanese fighter Akihiko Hoshide will catch up with the space station on Saturday, moving for an automatic docking around 5:10 to start a -monthly state.
Unlike the space shuttle, which could slip on runways in the United States, Spain or Africa in the event of an in-flight abortion, the parachute crew is designed to dive safely into the ocean if its automatic evacuation system is triggered, propelling the boat away from a faulty servomotor.
Relatively calm seas and winds are necessary for a safe crash and for the successful recovery of the first stage of the Falcon 9 on a barge-like drone.
While the chances of a flight abortion are remote, flight rules require acceptable offshore conditions before a crew dragon is eliminated for launch. Better weather is expected on Friday, both on shore and offshore.
“It’s not just about launch (weather) when we launch the crew,” Benji Reed, director of human spaceflight for SpaceX, said in a pre-flight briefing on Tuesday. “We have to worry about the whole trajectory of the ascent, because if something goes wrong, we want the Dragon to be able to get rid of the rocket. And that means they need to be able to go down to the ocean at all points along that potential escape.
“We look at the winds, the height of the waves and the lightning, all sorts of things to make sure it’s right.”
Kimbrough and his three colleagues are replacing the crew of another Dragon capsule – Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi – who were launched at the station in November last year on the first operational flight of the crew’s commercial program.
Despite the delay in launching for their replacement, Hopkins and company plan to return to Earth next Wednesday as previously planned, splashing in the Gulf of Mexico at 12:40 pm to complete a 164-day mission.