We have all been waiting for SpaceX’s launch yesterday, and we have all been disappointed to see that it was postponed. And now we have to wait until Saturday, the 30th of May. And it is all because of the orbital mechanics and the weather.
The company was supposed to launch Demo-2 on Wednesday, a mission that was supposed to send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on a Crew Dragon Capsule. However, the weather was not safe enough for it to happen, thing that forced SpaceX to postpone the planned liftoff, with less than 20 minutes left until the set launch hour.
The next date set for launch is Saturday, at 3:22 p.m. EDT. That’s when they have planned to try again for the launch to happen.
Koenigsmann stated: “The two days in between — it’s just a matter of phasing and how the orbital mechanics work out. And there are some other factors that play into that, too — traffic on the station, and so on and so forth.”
We know that the weather seemed to clear up at some point on Wednesday, and the launch would have probably happened if they had ten more minutes, according to SpaceX. But there is a problem with this: Demo-2 is not that kind of mission that had such leeway, but is the kind of mission that has an instantaneous launch window.
When they do flight analysis, they assume that the propellants’ temperatures are below a specific number, and this is how they know how much performance there is to the rocket, and how much margin they need to have.
We cannot wait for the launch to happen on Saturday.
