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Moments before launching NASA scrubbed today’s launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the manned Crew Dragon spacecraft on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on May 27, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
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The launch director of the SpaceX rocket set to lift off on Wednesday decided to delay the mission about 20 minutes before its scheduled departure time due to severe weather in the region.
Officials postponed the launch of the capsule, named Crew Dragon, out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the equipment and crew and recent severe weather developments off the coast of South Carolina.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX had been monitoring weather conditions in real time since rain and gale-level winds can pose risks to rockets.
Prior to the weather delay, the SpaceX countdown was smooth and without technical hurdles or hitches for an estimated launch time of 4:33 p.m. ET. The rescheduled Demo-2 mission is set for Saturday, May 30.
In a tweet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said, “we are not going to launch today.”
“Due to the weather conditions, the launch is scrubbing,” the space administration wrote. “Our next opportunity will be Saturday, May 30 at 3:22pm ET.”
SpaceX said in a similar tweet that it is delaying the launch due to “unfavorable” conditions.
Meteorologists have been tracking the progress of Tropical Depression Bertha as it made landfall east of Charleston, South Carolina over the last 24 hours.
Though the storm is expected to dissipate as it moves into North Carolina Wednesday evening, the SpaceX crew determined that the atmospheric conditions at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., were poor enough to warrant a postponement.
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