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On Friday evening, November 13, NASA and SpaceX announced that the first operational mission of the Crew Dragon’s commercial crew program will be postponed from 24 hours to Sunday, November 15 at 7:27 p.m. EST (0027 GMT 11/16). At a Crew-1 pre-launch press conference, SpaceX senior director of human space flight programs Benji Reed said the delay was due to impacts on recovery efforts caused by Tropical Storm Eta , which had been rampant in Florida for days.
Just before the press conference, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched its Atlas V rocket after experiencing delays earlier in the week. Mission NROL-101 carried a payload classified for the U.S. Government’s National Reconnaissance Office and was successfully launched from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base at 5:32 p.m. EST.
Florida weather caused several launch delays
Weather conditions, especially those caused by Tropical Storm Eta, have caused a domino effect of delays for SpaceX and ULA in recent weeks. The ULA Atlas V 531 rocket stacked with the covert NROL-101 payload, originally scheduled for liftoff on November 3, was first delayed by damage to the upper-stage environmental control system hardware.
According to company CEO Tory Bruno, as the rocket was transported from ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) to the SLC-41 launch pad, very strong winds damaged a conduit that controlled the throughput of a higher payload environmental control system. As a result, the rocket was returned to VIF to have the conduit replaced. A launch attempt scheduled for the next day Wednesday, November 4 was canceled due to an unrelated issue with ground support equipment.
The NROL-101 mission was then to be launched on Sunday, November 8, but this attempt was ultimately canceled due to the impending weather that would cross the Florida peninsula by Hurricane Eta. On Friday, November 6, the Atlas V 531 rocket and the National Reconnaissance Office payload were returned to VIF again to protect themselves from the storm.
A final launch attempt has been identified for Friday, November 13, just 22 hours before the planned launch of the SpaceX, NASA Crew-1 mission from Launch Complex 39A located near the Kennedy Space Center. Fortunately, the time was long enough for the ULA Atlas V 531 rocket to take off. After takeoff and the successful deployment of the payload, the mission was later declared a complete success by the ULA.
The Florida weather also caused recovery delays at sea, impacting the crewed launch
Likewise, the SpaceX and NASA Crew-1 mission also suffered setbacks due to inclement weather, but not at the launch site. Following the successful launch and landing of the B1062 Falcon 9 from the recent GPSII-SV04 mission on Thursday, November 5, SpaceX’s recovery teams battled rough seas to make the recovery booster and drone, of course I t still love (OCISLY), safe return to Port Canaveral.
After securing the B1062 aboard OCISLY, the SpaceX GO Quest recovery vessel fled to the port of Morehead City in North Carolina. The recovery team would wait there to assist with the recovery of the Crew-1 B1061 Falcon 9, rather than returning to Port Canaveral in Florida. The Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) droneship was intended to meet the GO Quest crew in the Crew-1 booster recovery area before the end of the week.
Due to the high winds and rough seas brought on by Tropical Storm Eta, the OCISLY droneship made an unusually tedious 7-day trip along the eastern seaboard of the United States to return to Port Canaveral. The delay delayed the process of transferring the crew from OCISLY to JRTI, which hampered the departure of the JRTI droneship.
As Tropical Storm Eta moved away from Florida, the waters of the Atlantic remained too rough for the JRTI drone to make up for lost time. Following the conclusion of SpaceX Crew-1’s pre-flight readiness review on Friday, November 13, it was announced that the delay in the arrival of the recovery drone in the B1061 landing zone will delay the 24-hour Crew-1 launch attempt.
Collecting the Falcon 9 booster, from any mission, is a secondary mission objective. However, the recovery of the Crew-1, B1061 Falcon 9 is important to both NASA and SpaceX – enough to delay a launch attempt. NASA and SpaceX have already designated this booster for reuse in the next Crew Dragon mission, Crew-2, targeted no earlier than March 30, 2021. In order to reuse a booster to save on launch costs, it must first be recovered successfully. .
If all goes according to plan, three astronauts from NASA and one astronaut from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will board the Crew Dragon Resilience on Sunday, November 15 and fly to the International Space Station at precisely 7:27 p.m. EST. (0027 11/16) from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA and SpaceX will provide a hosted live stream of all Crew-1 events starting at 3:15 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 15 on NASA TV and the SpaceX website.
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