News & Updates

CRS-19: Better Late Than Never

posted on 5th December, 2019 7:48 pm by

After weather conditions forced a postponement of the launch originally scheduled for yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched their Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket from SLC-40 to the International Space Station today at 12:29 pm EST.

Yesterday’s weather was unseasonably cold for those brave souls who ventured out to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and elsewhere to watch the launch, but the low temperature wasn’t the cause of the scrub. Rather, it was upper-level winds – everyone’s least-favorite launch party guest – that were responsible for the delay.

Even when wind conditions near the ground seem mild, high winds in the upper atmosphere can cause control problems for a rocket in flight, making launches a Very Bad Idea. Despite the delay, prospective launch viewers remained undaunted, showing a strong attendance at Kennedy Space Center’s Banana Creek viewing area for the rescheduled launch today.

Following a liftoff accompanied by enthusiastic cheers, SpaceX brought the Falcon 9’s first stage to a landing on its drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, as the Dragon capsule hurtled onward toward the ISS. While normally an ISS launch would be accompanied by a RTLS landing at LZ-1 in Cape Canaveral, testing of a 6-hour coast using stage 2 required the use of more fuel, thereby necessitating a landing at sea. This, of course, means there will eventually be a booster return at Port Canaveral, so stay tuned for more news of that.

When the Dragon arrives at the ISS, it will be the fourth spacecraft docked there (sharing parking space with Cygnus-12 and Soyuz MS-13 and MS-15) and deliver more than 5,700 pounds of NASA cargo and science investigations, including a next-generation imaging system called HISUI, experiments testing the malting of barley in microgravity, and a new group of intrepid mousetronauts to investigate methods of preventing muscle and bone loss during spaceflight. Unlike CRS-16, which coincidentally launched a year ago today, moldy mouse food was not a factor in today’s launch.

The Dragon capture will be handled by Expedition 61 Commander Luca Parmitano of ESA, with NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan acting as backup, and NASA’s Jessica Meir monitoring telemetry. Coverage of the Dragon capture will begin on Sunday, December 8th at 4:30 am on NASA TV and at NASA Live, to be followed by coverage of robotic installation to the Harmony module at 8:00 am. Be there! or be… asleep, probably.