Today the United States will launch its first live crew into space from US soil since the last Space Shuttle launch in 2011. The SpaceX rocket “Dragon” will launch a test crew of 2 into space today from the historic launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. The launch is set to occur at 4:33 pm about 2 hours from now.
The weather will play a huge part in whether or not the SpaceX craft will make it off the launch pad today. A rocket launch from pad 39A requires that the weather is within strict parameters both at the launch pad itself and for thousands of miles down range from the launch pad in the event that the mission must be aborted before orbit is achieved (usually around 9 minutes after launch). Those weather criteria are shown below:
Looking at the current weather situation at the launch site, it looks like things are a bit on the iffy side for the launch.
There are numerous showers and thunderstorms which have developed around the launch site which may put the 4:33pm launch in jeopardy. Just a short time ago there was a tornado warning that clipped a part of the 10 mile region around the launch site. That warning has since expired but it’s indicative of the problem that Dragon may run into today with weather.
If the launch takes place, the upper level winds are quite favorable for the rocket to travel through with fairly light 5-20 knot winds for the first 50,000 ft of ascent.
The weather down range from the launch site also must be in good shape as the Dragon capsule must splash down in the event of an abort. It looks like down range weather will be favorable as the sea state along the rockets launch trajectory is about 3-7′ with relatively light winds, around 10 kt from Cape Canaveral, FL along the eastern seaboard to just SE of Nova Scotia.
So, in short, if we can keep the thunderstorms and lightning strikes away from the 10 mile radius around the launch pad we should be good to launch. Currently NASA is saying that it’s about a 50-50 chance that the launch will go off today. If it does, NASA and SpaceX make history!
Bay State Weather 