Historic SpaceX NASA launch delayed by weather
Next takeoff attempt will be Saturday
SpaceX delayed its historic astronaut launch that was set for Wednesday afternoon due to unfavorable weather conditions, the company announced.
The next launch attempt will be Saturday at 3:22 p.m. ET. The rocket will be carrying a Dragon capsule with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken from the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, to the International Space Station.
Tropical Storm Bertha has soaked Florida for the past week, and while the bad weather has since started heading north toward the Carolinas, it did not taper off fast enough for SpaceX to follow through on plans to launch at 4:33 p.m. ET Wednesday.
SPACEX WILL USE THIS ROCKET FOR ITS FIRST MANNED SPACE LAUNCH
The rescheduled launch will be the first in Florida in nine years with astronauts on board and a first for a private company.
Storm clouds pass over the Vehicle Assembly Building as the SpaceX Falcon 9, with the Crew Dragon spacecraft on top of the rocket, sits on Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, May 27, 2020, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phi
Forecasters initially put the odds of acceptable launch weather at 40 percent. But that did not include the conditions all the way up the U.S. and Canadian coasts and across the sea to Ireland — a complicated mix of measurements unique to the Dragon crew capsule.
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FOX Business' Ken Martin and the Associated Press contributed to this report.