SpaceX rolled the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon capsule to Pad39A this morning. Factor in to that milestone that we were under steady rains starting Monday afternoon for around 40 hours. The good part about that was that the rain cleared out late this afternoon and the forecast has consistently shown much better conditions at launch time than the last few days.
The launch is still scheduled for Wednesday evening at 5:11 PM EST local time. The US Space Force 45th Weather Squadron is saying the chances for acceptable weather are 95% (pdf warning).
The Axiom capsule on the booster at Pad39A, with the crew access arm in place. SpaceX Tweeted this picture at 11:12 AM, so all we know is it was taken before then. If you look at the top of the frame, you can see mist around the top of the Starship launch tower in the background. Might be rain or the low clouds.
Axiom Space's other two missions to the ISS launched in April 2022 and May 2023, respectively. López-Alegría commanded the first one, and record-setting former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson led the second. (NASA requires that private crewed missions to the orbiting lab be commanded by a former agency astronaut.)
Axiom Space isn't just about organizing crewed flights to the ISS. A few years from now, the company plans to start launching its own modules to the orbiting lab. This hardware will eventually detach, forming a free-flying private space station in low Earth orbit.
The Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission previously flew Crew-4 and Peggy Whitson's Ax-2 mission to and from the space station. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will return to the cape and land on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1)
ReplyDeleteThink of that. A landing pad at the Cape. Other than Buck Rodgers (1930s) and a few sci-fi movies, when is the last time we'd heard or seen such a thing?
Now, officially at a gov facility, there is an actual landing pad for vertical rocket landings.
I still get giddy when seeing actual Buck Rodgers-esque landings.
The videos to watch are the Falcon Heavy launches when they bring both boosters back to the cape and land on LZ-1 and LZ-2 a few seconds apart. They usually stagger them in time by a few seconds so you can focus on each one. Sometimes I feel like the future we were so looking forward to in the '60s and '70s is finally happening.
DeleteWatch this short video.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zJY7NIzOmC8
There HAS BEEN a "landing pad" at the Cape for many years now.
ReplyDeleteIt is called the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Not to disparage the shuttle program but the runway wasn't the facility that anonymous or I was talking about. We were talking about the round landing pads for vertical landings.
DeleteMatsim, that is why I was sure to include 'verticle ... landings'.
Delete