SpaceX will have another chance at making history this weekend — if the weather cooperates.
The company is scheduled to launch its first astronaut crew into orbit on Saturday aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, a landmark test flight that will mark the first time American astronauts blast off from U.S. soil in nearly a decade.
The historic liftoff was originally scheduled to take place Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. But stormy weather — including the threat of lightning — forced SpaceX to postpone proceedings with less than 17 minutes to go in the countdown.
The capsule, carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, is now slated to launch to the International Space Station on Saturday at 3:22 p.m. ET. Behnken and Hurley will be the first humans to ride aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and the first NASA astronauts to fly in a commercially built spacecraft.
But clouds and rain be a factor again for Saturday’s planned launch. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday morning that they were proceeding with the countdown, but noted that was only about a 50 percent chance the launch would happen due to ongoing weather concerns.
After liftoff, Behnken and Hurley will spend around 19 hours orbiting Earth before the capsule approaches the space station. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock at the orbiting outpost Sunday at 10:29 a.m. Eastern.
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Astronauts have not launched into space from the U.S. since NASA shuttered its space shuttle program in 2011. SpaceX’s much-anticipated launch has been heralded as the start of a new era of human spaceflight — one that involves NASA contracting out routine flights to the space station to private companies while the agency focuses on other science and exploration goals.
“We’re at the dawn of a new age, and we’re really leading the beginning of a space revolution,” James Morhard, NASA’s deputy administrator, said Friday in a news briefing. “This is something much bigger than all of us.”
Indeed, the milestone event has garnered widespread interest. President Donald Trump and members of his family, along with Vice President Mike Pence, traveled to Florida earlier this week to witness the launch. Trump is expected to return to the Kennedy Space Center this weekend.
SpaceX has another launch opportunity on Sunday, if needed, but weather forecasts are only marginally better, with a 60 percent chance that conditions will meet all the safety requirements set by the company and NASA.
The agency has not confirmed other possible launch dates beyond Sunday, but these decisions typically require juggling a range of considerations. Launch windows must take into account orbital dynamics, for instance, to ensure that the rocket and capsule will be properly aligned with the space station as it hurtles into orbit. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Friday that weather conditions downrange of the launch site are also taken into account, in the event that Behnken and Hurley need to make an emergency escape while the rocket is ascending.
“We will go when we are ready,” Bridenstine said. “Safety is the highest priority, and that’s what we’re focused on.”
The test flight is the last major milestone for SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a joint public-private partnership to develop new spacecraft for trips into low-Earth orbit. Since the end of the space shuttle program, NASA has spent more than $80 million per seat to hitch rides to the space station aboard Russian capsules and rockets.
SpaceX received more than $3 billion from NASA to develop the Crew Dragon capsule, and the company has spent the past six years modifying and testing the spacecraft. An uncrewed version of the capsule is already used to ferry cargo to the space station, but this will be SpaceX’s inaugural flight with humans onboard.
If successful, SpaceX could begin flying crews to the orbiting outpost in August, according to Bridenstine.
Under the Commercial Crew Program, NASA also awarded more than $4.5 billion to Boeing to design a rival capsule known as the CST-100 Starliner. Boeing is expected to conduct an uncrewed test flight of the capsule later this year.
In addition to being an important historical milestone, SpaceX’s mission represents the return of human spaceflight to the Kennedy Space Center. NASA officials said they are looking forward to astronaut crews making regular trips to and from the space station from U.S. soil, followed by crewed journeys to the moon and eventually Mars.
“I remember when I was in second grade watching the space shuttle launch,” NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, who spent 141 days living and working on the space station in 2015, said Friday in a news briefing. “That inspired me to recognize that this job of exploration was a possibility for me. [SpaceX’s] launch is going to do that for the next generation of scientists, explorers and astronauts.”
