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posted by martyb on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the LEO-is-not-just-the-name-of-a-lion dept.

[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.

You can also join the discussion on channel #Soylent on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Link to the YouTube Live Stream.

National Weather Service Current Conditions and Forecast and Hourly Forecast Graph.

Interactive, real-time lightning map

Twitter feeds for NASA, SpaceX and Elon Musk.

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


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @07:48PM (19 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday May 30 2020, @07:48PM (#1001132) Journal

    UH oh, he said he hopes the launch inspires a young child to become the next Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson. EAT HIM ALIVE!

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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:12PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:12PM (#1001143)

    Trump launching this rocket is a blatant racist affront to george floyd and all the protestors. I cant imagine anything more dispespectful to minorities for Trump to do right now.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:36PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @08:36PM (#1001151)

      no, it is just a desperate measure by a clown trying to snag some glory from anyone, anything, instead of dealing with his chaotic shit storms.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:26PM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:26PM (#1001193) Journal

        The launch has been planned for years, and the launch dates were set by NASA and SpaceX.

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        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @11:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @11:11PM (#1001210)

          You are just parroting republican talking points.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:23PM (#1001158)

      Trump didn't launch the rocket. He'd never be able to get it up.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:56PM (#1001174)

      Leave the trolling to the MSM!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:25AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:25AM (#1001241)

      I was just thinking how unfortunate the timing was, the more things change ....the more they stay the same
      https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/gil-scott-herons-poem-whitey-on-the-moon/239622/ [theatlantic.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @03:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @03:35PM (#1001386)

        Looking at things from a different perspective there's also the saying, 'When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.' That statement was made by a man who lived about 2,500 years ago.

        If we spent our time since then trying to solve all of these petty problems instead of just moving society forward, it's likely that society and technology today would look pretty much as it did 2,500 years ago. Some guy acted like idiot, the police killed him. I do care about this issue because I think police brutality is not really helping anybody, but among the list of priorities for society it ranks nowhere meaningful. It'd be one thing if police were randomly assaulting people, but they're not - they are attacking people who actively and intentionally provoke them. That doesn't justify their behavior, but it minimizes the negative consequences of it. Don't act like an idiot to police and they won't act like idiots towards you - regardless of race, religion, or creed.

        Beyond this, what do you want to do? People chimping out over another dead idiot is not only going to fail to achieve anything productive whatsoever, but will likely end up doing the exact opposite of what the rioters ostensibly think they want. After the LA riots the LA police didn't suddenly go 'Oh dang, we should be a bit more careful about beating the shit out of people in the future.' They instead decided 'We need to be able to crush these sort of riots more effectively in the future.' and became even more militarized and relentless. The riots end up creating the very cause the police will use to become even more militarized which trends towards greater brutality. This whole thing is an endless circle of people, on all sides, responding to stupidity with even more stupidity.

        By contrast it's not out of the question that America could be colonizing other planets within 10-20 years. And that would completely reshape not only our society but our entire species. Imagine something akin to manifest destiny except without the nastiness involved when that destiny already is claimed by somebody else, and one that basically never ends. *That* is one potential future for humanity - a time of literally endless fruits for any who seek them. And today we just got a whole lot closer to achieving this future.

  • (Score: 1) by Frosty Piss on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:19PM (10 children)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:19PM (#1001157)

    Bezos and Branson are not serious contenders for any real NASA work - both operate Vanity Projects. Bezos was included in the moon thing because he has enough money to make a stink if they leave him out, but he’s got nothing to offer. Quite frankly Boeing is on the edge of being an “also played” ... who would want to fly on their suicide mission?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @09:27PM (#1001159)

      It might be safer than a 737 Max 8.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:20PM (8 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday May 30 2020, @10:20PM (#1001189) Journal

      Quite frankly Boeing is on the edge of being an “also played” ... who would want to fly on their suicide mission?

      Christopher Ferguson, Michael Fincke, and Nicole Aunapu Mann.

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      • (Score: 1) by Frosty Piss on Saturday May 30 2020, @11:04PM (7 children)

        by Frosty Piss (4971) on Saturday May 30 2020, @11:04PM (#1001205)

        Only because they drew the short straws and so lost out on the Crew Dragon.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:58AM (6 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:58AM (#1001244) Journal

          True, but if they wanted to bitch out, they could do so at any time, and there are backup crew members ready to step in. Since they aren't quitting, they are *likely* confident that they won't become burnt stardust. Or they are crazy/suicidal.

          Either way, looks like SpaceX will fly a 4 astronaut mission before Boeing even takes off. If the Starliner problems are worse than originally thought, Boeing could be cut out of the program entirely. I think they will fly though.

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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:03PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:03PM (#1001396)

            I find most the stuff you say pretty reasonable, but I have no idea where you're coming from on this one. These guys have all spent their entire lives building up their careers. If they back out, those careers are dead. They have 0 choice here. On the other hand, every single one of them was a military test pilot. And requirement #1 there absolutely is prioritizing adrenaline over safety. You get to test out the most cutting edge hardware there is, but the price you pay is one of life expectancy.

            So I do think they'll all fly on it, but these guys are all brilliant and I think there's 0 doubt they all also recognize that this is probably going to be one of the most dangerous missions they've ever taken on. Boeing's pad abort was a failure with only 2 of 3 of their chutes deploying under nominal conditions. They got NASA to call it a success and let them move on to a test flight. And that test flight was a complete and utter catastrophe in every single way imaginable short of the pod outright blowing (or burning) up. And even there they nearly got NASA to let them go straight to flying humans. Boeing has enough political clout to let them get through this while being held to a far lower standard than SpaceX is being held to and that's not good for anybody, but most of all - for these test pilots. They're putting their lives at risk to test second rate hardware that should have long since been scrapped.

            • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:02PM (2 children)

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 31 2020, @05:02PM (#1001423) Journal

              They definitely have choices, and they can throw a wrench in the works and accept whatever consequences come. They aren't mindless adrenaline-seeking automatons and they would like to fly in a spacecraft that works. They themselves could probably squash Boeing's flight (which has already been postponed to 2021) by raising concerns, and they have a better chance of doing it now that SpaceX has been successful.

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              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @06:19PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @06:19PM (#1001450)

                Were you just watching the news conference from the ISS by chance? You should be able to catch it by zooming through this [youtu.be] video at the tail end. I had a lot of hopes for Bridenstine and I do think at the beginning of his tenure that he was everything we need. But I have no idea how congress/Boeing does it, but they corrupt pretty much everybody. After this docking was completed flawlessly, he went on to praise this as the advent of the Artemis project, their partners for the moon program, and went on some babbling identity politics things before to finally conclude non-ironically stating that he's more popular than ever on Twitter and it's thanks to these astronauts. And that was literally his entire spiel. He mentioned SpaceX literally once, in passing.

                This is, with 0 hyperbole, one of the most important achievements in human spaceflight ever achieved primarily thanks to SpaceX, and it was Boeing + identity politics + I'm popular on Twitter. He's like an entirely different person and has absolutely checked out from everything and is just doing the real life equivalent of shit posting while peddling for Boeing. Even the astronauts seemed taken aback and were the ones repeatedly mentioning SpaceX. He managed to make Ted Cruz sound thoughtful and insightful, by contrast. No I definitely think speaking out, or really showing anything short of unadulterated love for Boeing, in this environment is as good as resigning.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:18PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @04:18PM (#1001404)

            And you know what the worst part here is? We might like to imagine that even if the worst happens, well at least it would change things. But it wouldn't. We are watching, in real time and in public view, exactly what happened with Challenger. Challenger should not have flown. The direct of the solid rocket motor project refused to sign off on a launch recommendation for the *exact* [nasa.gov] reason that ended up causing the rocket to explode. But NASA pushed ahead because special interests demanded that rocket get off the ground. They're doing the exact same thing again. Boeing and whoever's souls they clearly own are pushing NASA to let them go ahead and NASA is acting spineless as usual.

            And once again if this launch ends up with a catastrophe there will be some investigation, some tearful and charismatically delivered speeches, thousands of pages of documentation and blabbering written down, probably a scape goating or two, and then they'll get back to doing the exact same thing again. I just find it so frustrating. I guess the one good thing we have now is this milestone itself. The government, of which I include Boeing, are no longer the forces behind human space flight. SpaceX is a completely private company, and they just sent two men to the ISS. Regardless of NASA, space and even American space in particular, will continue to rapidly grow and progress.