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[20200530_203823 UTC: UPDATE: Launch was successful, all systems nominal, first stage successfully landed on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You", and Ben and Doug are on their 19-hour flight to the ISS (International Space Station). Live coverage continues all the way through docking.]
Today's the day— weather permitting, America is returning to space:
During Wednesday's technically smooth countdown, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken came within 17 minutes of launching before a scrub due to poor weather. Now the crew will suit up and try again on Saturday despite still iffy weather.
SpaceX is working toward an instantaneous launch at 3:22pm ET (19:22 UTC). The big concern again today is the development of thunderstorms near the launch site this afternoon, which could violate a number of weather criteria, including not just precipitation, but also residual electric energy from lighting in the atmosphere. Overall, the chance of acceptable weather at launch time is about 50 percent, forecasters estimate. They are also watching for down-range conditions in case an emergency abort is required during the rocket's ascent to space.
This is nothing new for NASA or U.S. human spaceflight. As the commander, Hurley, noted on Twitter Friday that his first space mission in 2009 scrubbed five times for weather or technical issues before it finally lifted off. "All launch commit criteria is developed way ahead of any attempt," Hurley said. "This makes the correct scrub or launch decision easier in the heat of the moment."
It has been such a long, long road for NASA and SpaceX to reach this moment—thousands of engineers and technicians have labored to design, develop, test, and fly hardware for the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket over the last decade. But now the hardware and crew are ready, and at just the right time, to go fly.
[...] A combined NASA and SpaceX webcast will begin today at 11am ET (15:00 UTC).
Launch is scheduled for exactly 2 hours from the time this story goes live.
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Recently:
(2020-05-27) SpaceX to Launch Crew Demo 2; Weather Causes Today's Launch to be Scrubbed; Try Again Sat.
(2020-05-27) SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 Launch Timeline
(2020-05-26) Spacex - Crew Dragon Demo 2 Launch - 2020-05-27 20:33 UTC (16:33 EDT)
(2020-05-13) SpaceX Crew Dragon Simulator Challenges You to Dock with the ISS, and It's Not Easy
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday May 30 2020, @06:55PM (8 children)
The photos of astronauts wearing the new spacesuits look like they are wearing a two piece ensemble that is open at the waist. How do you pressurize that? Apparently the specs have not been made public, but reports I’ve read say that the suit weighs about half of their predecessor NASA equivalents.
Is EVA possible? What about a loss of cabin pressure? Very little discussion of this to be found in the tech press that I can find— just a lot of blathering about how stylish they look...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @06:59PM (6 children)
They are not spacesuits. They are "flight suits".
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/astronauts-test-out-their-new-flight-suits-180972882/ [smithsonianmag.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @07:07PM
Also fits around XXL Depends® adult diapers.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday May 30 2020, @07:30PM (4 children)
Fine. They are “flight suits”. What kind of pressure differential can they support and for how long?
I understand that there are trade offs relative to how you distribute life support redundancies, but I’d still like to know more about the suits. Guess the millions of us curious tech types are too dumb to understand.
Works well on an unprotected mannequin floating in a Tesla though!
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:02PM (1 child)
The old space shuttle orange pumpkin suits were also just flight suits.
Since you asked though, I'll take 5 seconds to search for an article for you:
https://everydayastronaut.com/up-close-and-personal-with-spacexs-space-suit/ [everydayastronaut.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:08PM
Rupert wants numbers and facts, not photos.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:02PM
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:35PM
One of the purposes of a flight suit is to protect the astronauts in case of a loss of cabin pressure, so they have to be capable of handling pressure down to zero.
They're still not real space suits, though. They require a connection to on board oxygen, and they aren't designed to withstand the external space environment. Doing an EVA in one would be "Martian" level improvisation.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:38PM
The shark here is. “Hey austro-nut, Disney.wants its costumes back!”
Then watch them ride in a Tesla Ad followed by a military armoried vehicle. I guess they would shot it the Astro-mutes tried to run.
Lastly seeing the destoried launch pad 39-a. I wanted to see the crawler crawl out and smashed those SpaceX buildings. Now that would be a MONSTER TRUCK event!