Weather for Saturday’s SpaceX launch is presently poor
The weather for Saturday’s SpaceX launch presently gives only a 40% chance of launch.
Forecasters from the 45th Weather Squadron have issued a slightly more pessimistic outlook for the next two Crew Dragon launch opportunities Saturday and Sunday.
There’s now a 60 percent probability of weather conditions at the launch site violating one of the criteria for liftoff for launch opportunities at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT) Saturday and at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) Sunday, according to the weather team.
The worst part is that the weather doesn’t look good for either day.
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The weather for Saturday’s SpaceX launch presently gives only a 40% chance of launch.
Forecasters from the 45th Weather Squadron have issued a slightly more pessimistic outlook for the next two Crew Dragon launch opportunities Saturday and Sunday.
There’s now a 60 percent probability of weather conditions at the launch site violating one of the criteria for liftoff for launch opportunities at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT) Saturday and at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) Sunday, according to the weather team.
The worst part is that the weather doesn’t look good for either day.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Florida doesn’t have the best space weather. Boca Chica Beach 1,000 km to the west seems to have much more stable weather.
That’s a disappointment, but not nearly so much as a failed launch. What are the next launch opportunities after Sunday?
LocalFluff Re: Boca Chica, I have no doubt that’s in the future (SpaceX is growing there, and fast) but I suspect NASA wanted this done on their turf, and there is likely a lot more infrastructure in place for manned launches at Canaveral than in Boca Chica. That said, Boca’s got some serious advantages as well.
Now updated to 50/50 go/nogo as of now. Crossing all my fingers and toes!
And of course, the weather at the half-dozen abort landing sites has to be taken into consideration too. As long as we stick to the convenient but risky practice of landing our spacecraft in the water to reduce the need to decelerate them at touchdown, weather is going to be a bigger factor than it need be.
The Russians didn’t have any conveniently located oceans, so they don’t use water landing, but last-second retro-rockets. Boeing uses airbags, which strikes me as a simple and effective solution. SpaceX of course wanted to use propulsive landing, but applying that to manned vehicles was a bit too far of a step for NASA.
Bottom line is we on Earth live in a deep gravity well, the deepest in the solar system of any surface we could launch from or land on. It is a penalty we have to find a better solution for than landing in water just because that’s the way we’ve always done it.
Ps. Of course the scrub Wednesday had nothing to do with the need for a water landing… that we know of. But my point was that bad seas at one or more abort sites could cause a scrub even in beautiful weather at Cape Canaveral.
PPs. I wasn’t real comfortable with the vague response I heard to the question about how many and/or which abort sites would have to be no-go to cause a launch to be scrubbed by themselves. Those kind of informal criteria (if they in fact are…) are invitations to “go for it” risk-taking.