Stormy skies delay SpaceX liftoff

Capsule riders disembark; NASA resets launch for Saturday

The Falcon 9 rocket vents liquid oxygen Wednesday as it prepares for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., moments before its mission was aborted because of bad weather.
(AP/SpaceX)
The Falcon 9 rocket vents liquid oxygen Wednesday as it prepares for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., moments before its mission was aborted because of bad weather. (AP/SpaceX)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The launch of a SpaceX rocket ship with two NASA astronauts on a history-making flight into orbit was called off with less than 17 minutes to go in the countdown Wednesday because of thunderclouds and the danger of lightning.

Liftoff was rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.

The spacecraft -- designed, built and owned by SpaceX -- was set to blast off in the afternoon for the International Space Station, opening a new era in commercial spaceflight. It also would have marked the first time in nearly a decade that the U.S. launched astronauts into orbit from American soil.

But thunderstorms for much of the day threatened to force a postponement, and the word finally came down that the atmosphere was so electrically charged that the spacecraft with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard was in danger of getting hit by a bolt of lightning.

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"No launch for today -- safety for our crew members Astro--Doug and AstroBehnken is our top priority," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted, using a lightning emoji.

The two men were scheduled to ride aboard the SpaceX's sleek, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, taking off from the same launch pad used during the Apollo moon missions a half-century ago.

Both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had arrived to watch. Trump, who before the flight postponement marveled at the"magnificent" sight of the rocket on the pad, later tweeted that he will return for the next attempt.

"Thank you to NASA and SpaceX for their hard work and leadership. Look forward to being back with you on Saturday!" he said.

The flight -- the long-held dream of SpaceX founder Elon Musk -- will mark the first time a private company sends humans into orbit.

During the day, the rumble of thunder could be heard as the astronauts made their way to the pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and a tornado warning was issued moments after they climbed into their capsule.

"We could see some raindrops on the windows and just figured that whatever it was, was too close to the launch pad at the time we needed it not to be," Hurley, the spacecraft commander, said after the flight was scrubbed. "Understand that everybody's probably a little bit bummed out. That's just part of the deal. ... We'll do it again, I think, on Saturday."

"Appreciate your resilience sitting there in the vehicle," a controller replied.

Behnken responded: "Nothing better than being prime crew on a new spaceship."

The astronauts had to remain strapped in their seats until all the fuel in their rocket was unloaded and the emergency escape system was disarmed.

The launch preparations took place in the shadow of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed an estimated 100,000 Americans.

With this mission, "everybody can look up and say, 'Look, the future is so much brighter than the present. And I really hope that this is an inspiration to the world," Bridenstine said.

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The flight would put Musk and SpaceX in the same league as only three spacefaring countries -- Russia, the U.S. and China, all of which have sent astronauts into orbit.

"What today is about is reigniting the dream of space and getting people fired up about the future," Musk said in a NASA interview before the postponement.

A solemn-sounding Musk said he felt his responsibilities most heavily when he saw the astronauts' wives and young sons just before the launch attempt. He said he told them: "We've done everything we can to make sure your dads come back OK."

NASA pushed ahead with the preparations despite the viral outbreak but kept the guest list at Kennedy extremely limited and asked spectators to stay at home. Still, cars and RVs lined the roads around Cape Canaveral, with people staking out viewing spots.

The space agency also estimated 1.7 million people were watching the launch preparations online.

NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to design and build spaceships to carry astronauts to the space station in a new kind of public-private partnership aimed at bringing down costs and spurring innovation. Boeing's capsule, Starliner, is not expected to fly astronauts into space until early 2021.

Ultimately, NASA hopes to send astronauts back to the moon in the next few years, and then travel on to Mars in the 2030s.

"We're doing it differently than we've ever done it before," Bridenstine said. "We're transforming how we do spaceflight in the future."

photo

NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley (left) and Robert Behnken leave the operations center for Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday for what would have been the first manned flight of a commercial space vehicle. Unfavorable weather stopped the launch, and liftoff was rescheduled for Saturday. More photos at arkansasonline.com/528launch/. (AP/John Raoux)

A Section on 05/28/2020

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