Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) has cancelled its planned historic launch into the space 16 minutes before launch due to weather conditions. The launch was scheduled at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.
The company was set to launch its first crewed flight to space on Wednesday. The mission, planned to transport two NASA astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International space station (ISS) was postponed to 30 May due to unfavorable weather conditions.
Standing down from launch today due to unfavorable weather in the flight path. Our next launch opportunity is Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT, or 19:22 UTC
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 27, 2020
However, the launch can still take place on 31 May if the launch was not feasible on 30 May.
The two astronauts were to join three others who were already on the orbiting lab.
SpaceX founded in 2002, will increase its dominance in the space race if it pulls off the launch successfully as this would be the first time astronauts will be sent into orbit from the U.S since 2011.
America has not been able to launch its own astronauts into space in 9 years. For the past nine years, NASA has had to rely on the seats it buy on Russia’s Soyuz rockets for the flight of its astronauts to the International Space Station.
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According to Bloomberg, NASA awarded SpaceX $3.4 billion for the development of the dragon capsule. NASA is looking into the commercial future of space flights, as it no longer wish to revive the practice of having and operating its own space systems in Low Earth Orbit. Spacex and Boieng Co were choosing as the commercial crew for the launch.
#LaunchAmerica Update:
Weather is the the one thing that we actually cannot control on our missions so unfortunately, it did cause us to scrub today. The vehicles are healthy. @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug were ready to go and will be ready on our next launch attempt Saturday. pic.twitter.com/4aIGKo39dZ
— NASA (@NASA) May 27, 2020
NASA intends to outsource the service of transporting its crew to the space. The space agency simply wishes to buy seats from commercial space transports to ferry its astronauts going forward as a cost saving measures.
According to NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine “we envision a future where low-earth orbit is entirely commercialized, where NASA is one customer of many customers, where we have numerous providers that are competing on cost, on innovation and safety”.
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
