Hello and good afternoon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s a beautiful, sunny day on the space coast. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft stand ready for liftoff, at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Launch is targeted for 1:16 p.m. EST today, with an instantaneous launch window.
The Falcon 9 rocket went vertical this morning and weather is 90 percent favorable at launch time. Dragon’s internal countdown is running and propellant loading is underway.
Today’s launch is a cross-country effort. Launch controllers at the Florida spaceport are working in concert with teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX’s control center in Hawthorne, California. The launch blog originates from the NASA News Center here at Kennedy, a few miles west of the launch complex.
There’s more to come, so stay with us.