SpaceX was targeting a Sunday night launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station, although the outlook for good weather was only 50-50 and their leader was sidelined by Covid-19.
Vice President Mike Pence was expected at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the long-awaited start of regular crew rotations aboard privately owned and operated capsules. It also marked only the second time in nearly a decade that astronauts went into orbit from the United States.
“Game’s Day!” tweeted NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, the crew commander.
As nearby cities braced for a rush of viewers, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk revealed via Twitter that he “most likely” has a moderate case of coronavirus, despite mixed test results. .
It is NASA policy that anyone who tests positive for the virus is quarantined and remains in isolation.
Musk remained optimistic. “The astronaut launches today!” he tweeted Sunday morning, adding that he had symptoms of a mild cold last week, but currently felt “pretty normal.” Representatives for California-based SpaceX did not respond to inquiries about his whereabouts.
The launch of three Americans and one Japanese, all but one of them former space station residents, comes just three months after a pair of NASA test pilots successfully completed SpaceX’s first busy flight of a capsule. of the Dragon crew.
The crew led by Hopkins, an Air Force colonel, includes physicist Shannon Walker and the Commander of the Navy. and rookie astronaut Victor Glover, who will be the first black astronaut to spend an extended period aboard the space station – from five to six full months. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi will become the third person to enter orbit aboard three different types of spacecraft.
They named their capsule Resilience given all the challenges in 2020, especially the global pandemic.
The 50-50 forecast focused only on local weather for the planned 7:27 pm takeoff, not wind or sea conditions across the entire east coast or north Atlantic to Ireland. Wind and waves must be within limits in case something goes wrong during launch and the capsule needs to make an emergency splashdown.
Rough seas led SpaceX to advance the launch by one day so that its booster landing pad would reach its correct position in the Atlantic. The company plans to repurpose the first-stage thruster for its team’s next launch next spring.
NASA turned to private companies to transport cargo and crews to the space station, following the retirement of its space shuttles in 2011. The space agency will save millions by not having to buy seats in Russian Soyuz capsules.
NASA’s other crew transportation provider, Boeing, has yet to launch astronauts. The company is still working to overcome software problems following the disfigured space debut of its Starliner capsule last December.
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