SpaceX is scheduled to launch its 18th resupply mission to the International Space Station at 6:24 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch complex 40 Wednesday, but the weather is only 30% favorable for launch thanks to winds that will bring bad conditions to the region. (Courtesy of SpaceX)
SpaceX could be sending 5,000 pounds of critical science cargo to the International Space Station as early as this week — if weather cooperates. The company has one shot Wednesday and Thursday evenings to shoot to space, but poor weather hovering over the Space Coast may push the launches into August.
“I wish I had some better news for everyone today," said Will Ulrich, an Air Force launch weather officer, during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center Wednesday morning.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch its 18th resupply mission to the International Space Station at 6:24 p.m. Wednesday, but the weather is only 30% favorable for launch thanks to winds that will bring bad conditions to the region.
“That will concentrate the majority of today’s showers and thunderstorms around the spaceport,” Ulrich said.
The launch time is instantaneous, meaning SpaceX will have just one opportunity to launch Wednesday, instead of having a launch window to work with. Thursday’s back up time at 6:01 p.m. is also an instantaneous launch window, and the weather is expected to be poor with conditions just 30% “go”, as well.
If the Falcon 9 rocket doesn’t take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 40 this week, the launch could be pushed back to around Aug. 1, said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s mission management director.
For this resupply mission to the International Space Station, SpaceX will be a sending a cargo vehicle that has flown three times — on SpaceX’s sixth and 13th ISS resupply flights — marking the first time that a Cargo Dragon spacecraft flies to the space station three times.
Reusability is a main component of SpaceX’s business model. The booster flying this mission already flew on SpaceX’s last resupply mission, it’s 17th, in early May, and it’s expected to be recovered after this launch, too. About eight minutes after take off, the booster is expected to land back at the Cape’s Landing Zone 1.
Heading to space will be about 250 science and research experiments, as well as other crucial technologies that will prepare the ISS for a future in which it will be open to more commercial opportunities.
To that end, NASA is sending an International Docking Adapter to the ISS, which will allow the orbiting laboratory to accommodate two crew or cargo spacecraft at the same time. That means that SpaceX and Boeing, which are developing astronaut capsules for NASA under its Commercial Crew Program, could dock two vehicles at a time — or could both dock at the same time.
NASA is hoping commercial companies will use the ISS in the future to test technology or manufacture products. Private astronauts, too, could make the trips.
“It sets the stage for how we are going to operate with Commercial Crew vehicles and our partners in the future,” said Bill Spetch, deputy manager of the ISS transportation office.
On the commercial side, Adidas, Goodyear and kids network Nickelodeon are sending experiments that will be among the 17 private-sector research projects sponsored by the U.S. National Laboratory for this mission.
Nickelodeon will send its iconic green slime for ISS video demonstrations to school-age students about how fluids low in microgravity. Adidas will be testing the spinning behavior of soccer balls in microgravity to study aerodynamics and Goodyear will be looking at novel formations of silica, the key material used to produce tires, that form in microgravity.
Among the other science investigation going to the space station are:
- An experiment that will attempt to print biological tissues in space. The three-dimensional printing of organs is a challenge on Earth because printing the tiny structures inside organs requires scaffolding strictures to support the tissue shapes in Earth’s gravity. In microgravity, that problem goes away. The experiment could be the first step to printing human organs in space.
- A study of the differences between mosses grown on the space station and those grown on Earth, to look at how microgravity impacts their development and photosynthesis rate. The experiment could lead to the use mosses as a source of food and oxygen for future deep space missions or help scientists engineer plants to grow better on Earth.
- One experiment will look at how immune defense cells react to the weightless environment of space, providing important data that could help protect astronauts during long-term space missions. It’ll also be the first investigation to use a type of genetically programmed adult cells in microgravity to study Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
- And also looking at astronaut health, another experiment will look at how microgravity impacts healing and tissue regeneration, allowing scientists to develop better ways of counteracting bone density loss in space.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/space/os-bz-spacex-crs18-launch-20190724-t6rb52aks5c4bj33ccmd25mw3u-story.html
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