NASA-SpaceX launch: Will weather play a spoilsport again?

SpaceX's Demo-2 mission is set to attempt the launch of its first crewed mission for NASA today, May 30, 2020. The two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, had climbed into their capsule for a second attempt at a history-making ride. The launch will commence a 19-hour long journey to the International Space Station. Both astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be spending between one and four months living and working there.

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What is the SpaceX launch time?

The SpaceX launch time is 3:22 p.m. EDT (19:22 GMT).The coverage of this historic launch begins at 12 p.m. EDT. It will show live views of the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule standing on the launch pad. This will mark the beginning of 26 hours of continuous SpaceX launch coverage by NASA on NASA TV, which will take viewers through the journey and the astronauts' arrival at the space station.

At 12:15 p.m. EDT (16:15 GMT), NASA and SpaceX will start a live broadcast of the launch with commentary from Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The launch itself is scheduled for 4:33 p.m. EDT (20:33 GMT). The NASA launch was "scrubbed" two days ago due to poor weather conditions.

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Will the SpaceX launch be cancelled?

An arm of the American military named ‘The 45th Space Wing’, that oversees all the East Coat rocket launches predicted that there may be a 50 per cent chance of the launch getting cancelled again due to bad weather conditions. This prompted SpaceX to request for a backup. SpaceX requested for Tuesday, June 2, as an additional backup date from NASA.

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What makes the SpaceX launch so historic?

This NASA launch marks the first-ever launch of NASA’s astronauts on a commercial spacecraft. The first launch of American astronauts into orbit through a U.S.-built vehicle from America was 2011. Since the US space shuttles retired in 2011, NASA crew members have been launching aboard the Russian Soyuz capsules from a launchpad in Kazakhstan. This launch is important for SpaceX as it will provide data on the performance of the Falcon 9 rocket, the Crew Dragon spacecraft and ground systems.