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Four astronauts launching this weekend aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft tethered to a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center Thursday for a dress rehearsal countdown as engineers reviewed preparations and checked the weather offshore in the wake of Tropical storm status.
Crew-1 commander Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, dressed in futuristic-looking SpaceX pressure suits, were brought to Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in white Tesla SUVs, such as they will be on Saturday, depending on the weather. if allowed, for a 7:49 pm EST launch.
With the astronauts tethered side by side, monitoring the high-tech touchscreens on the Crew Dragon capsule that they named “Resilience,” SpaceX launch controllers monitored the practice countdown from Fire Room 4 in the Fire Center. NASA Launch Control three miles from the platform.
Spacex
The next big milestone will come on Friday when NASA and SpaceX managers and engineers, following strict coronavirus protocols, conduct a formal launch readiness review to make a final assessment of the team’s readiness for flight.
Forecasters predict a 70% chance that the weather will be acceptable Saturday night at the Kennedy Space Center. But the prospects are less certain when it comes to winds and sea states in the Atlantic Ocean along the northeastern trajectory that Falcon 9 will follow propelling Crew Dragon into space station orbit.
Relatively calm seas are required for the recovery of the first stage of the Falcon 9, which the company plans to reuse for the next Crew Dragon flight six months from now. And generally, benign conditions are required throughout the entire flight path in the event of a malfunction that could force the crew to make an emergency landing.
“We are obviously looking at the weather, the weather is a big problem, the weather for multiple areas,” Kathy luedersNASA’s space exploration chief told Spaceflight Now on Friday. “The drone that we need where the first stage will land is heading today. And with the way the seas are, and the way Eta is, we’re looking at how fast that drone can get out.”
If the drone is not at the station on time, the launch will most likely be delayed.
“The landing weather for the first leg is a big problem,” Lueders said. “It’s the scenario we’ll use for Crew-2, so we care about it. It’s not that we never care, but this is an important scenario.”
After crossing Florida on Wednesday, Tropical Storm Eta was expected to follow a path parallel to the east coast to North Carolina and then into the Atlantic. By Saturday morning, the center of the storm should be well out to sea east of Boston.
SpaceX monitors data from about 50 buoys along the path that measure winds and wave heights, data that will be analyzed before a final decision to proceed with the launch.
