Poor weather conditions forced a scrub of a Tuesday night launch attempt by SpaceX on its latest resupply run for NASA to International Space Station, with a Wednesday backup attempt on tap that could bring a sonic boom to parts of Central Florida.<\/p>\n
A Falcon 9 on the CRS-34 mission looks to send a cargo Dragon spacecraft filled with 6,500 pounds of supplies to the space station launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station\u2019s Space Launch Complex 40, now targeting 6:50 p.m.<\/p>\n
Space Launch Delta 45\u2019s weather squadron forecasts a 65% chance for good conditions on Wednesday and 85% if delayed to Thursday.<\/p>\n
The first-stage booster is making its sixth trip to space and will attempt a recovery landing at Landing Zone 40 adjacent the launch pad.<\/p>\n
SpaceX warns the booster\u2019s return could bring the jarring noise as it breaks the sound barrier about eight minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is the possibility that residents of Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties may hear one or more sonic booms during the landing, but what residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions,\u201d the company announced in an advisory issued late Monday.<\/p>\n
This is the sixth trip to space for the Dragon cargo spacecraft as well, and it has about a 38-hour trip to the ISS to dock on May 14 at 9:50 a.m. The Dragon will remain docked for about a month before making a return to Earth targeting splashdown in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
Science highlights among the cargo are experiments named ODYSSEY (Outcomes of microbial Dynamics during Spaceflight and in SimulatEd microgravity), STORIE (Storm Time O+ Ring current Imaging Evolution) and SPARK (Spleen Activity in Space Anemia and Red Cells Kinetics).<\/p>\n
ODYSSEY will compare bacterial behavior to see how well Earth-based microgravity simulators mimic space conditions. STORIE will investigate charged particles in Earth orbit as they react to space weather events like solar flare eruptions. SPARK will focus on human samples of both red blood cells and spleens comparing them pre-flight to on-orbit to post-flight as part of NASA\u2019s efforts to prepare for future, long-duration astronaut missions.<\/p>\n
Other experiments headed up to the station for NASA include one called \u201cLaplace,\u201d which will study the movement and collision of dust particles in microgravity to understand particle motion in space, and one called \u201cGreen Bone,\u201d which will observe how bone cells grow and develop in space on a bone scaffold made from wood.<\/p>\n
Some equipment heading up include a replacement power cable for the European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device, a catalytic reactor, which is a component for the Water Recovery and Management System, and the\u00a0Universal Pretreat Concentrate Tank, which provides an alternate pretreat concentrate to the Universal Waste Management System and Waste Hygiene Compartment.<\/p>\n
Other things flying up include flexible repair patches for sealing the space station\u2019s hull, a replacement ultrasonic inspection tool, spare units for the station\u2019s vibration monitoring system and parts to improve water processing and oxygen generation.<\/p>\n
The launch is the first since May 1 and the 33rd from the Space Coast in 2026. SpaceX has flown all but five of those with NASA\u2019s Space Launch System on the Artemis II mission, a Blue Origin New Glenn mission and three flights from United Launch Alliance making up the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poor weather conditions forced a scrub of a Tuesday night launch attempt by SpaceX on its latest resupply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,114,115,139,141,140,554,109,76686,1769],"class_list":["post-269284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}