NASA-SpaceX's historic manned launch to ISS aborted due to bad weather; here's what's next

While millions of eyes across the world were on the historic launch of NASA-SpaceX Dragon Crew launch, the weather conditions have forced them to scrub the mission for the day. There was a prior warning of a tornado near the Kennedy Space Center at least two hours before the launch. Nevertheless, US astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken had boarded the Crew Dragon on the top of 230-foot SpaceX Falcon 9.

After the final call on weather conditions, the partially loaded rocket started with the ‘offload mission’. Reportedly, the astronauts were told that the weather wouldn't clear up enough to permit liftoff and the mission was called off with 16 minutes to go in the countdown. According to international reports, the entire #LaunchAmerica would be initiated later this week on May 30 at 3:22 pm ET. 

‘Herculean task’

While preparing for the launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine had lauded the entire mission as a “herculean task” and called it a “monumental achievement”. It was also revealed that the designing of the SpaceX Dragon capsule was started from scratch at least 12 years ago to travel to the Space Station. Bridenstine said that NASA let the “commercial industry innovate” and that led to solutions that were ‘undreamed of before’. According to the NASA Administrator, that aspect remains the ‘real success’ of the #LaunchAmerica.

Image Source: AP