Weather 30% Favorable for Tomorrow’s Launch to Station

Blue sky and clouds serve as a backdrop for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon spacecraft atop on the pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 2, 2023.
Blue sky and clouds serve as a backdrop for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon spacecraft atop on the pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 2, 2023. Photo credit: SpaceX

NASA and SpaceX are targeting tomorrow, June 3, for launch of the 28th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station from NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida. Weather officials with Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 30% chance of favorable weather conditions for liftoff, slated for 12:35 p.m. The primary weather concerns are the cumulus cloud rule, flight through participation, and surface electric fields rule.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, propelled by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, will deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the international crew aboard the orbiting laboratory. Included in the delivery are the next pair of IROSAs (International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays). These solar panels, which roll out using stored kinetic energy, will expand the energy-production capabilities of the space station. This will be the third set launching in Dragon’s trunk, and once installed, will help provide a 20% to 30% increase in power for space station research and operations.

To advance climate monitoring efforts, students from York University in Toronto, Ontario, are providing a camera that will observe snow and ice coverage in northern Canada. Other investigations launching include Genes in Space-10, a student-designed DNA experiment sponsored by ISS National Laboratory, and the next generation of seeds for NASA’s Plant Habitat-03, which studies plant adaptation to the space environment.

Humans have occupied the space station continuously since November 2000. In that time, 269 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft have visited the orbital outpost. It remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in exploration, including future missions to the Moon under Artemis, and ultimately, human exploration of Mars.

For more information on some of the science Dragon will be delivering during this mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/research-flies-to-the-space-station-on-spacex-crs-28

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