SpaceX: Polaris Dawn launch still on hold because of poor splashdown weather near Florida
The Polaris Dawn launch day still remains up in the air. Why? Unfavorable weather forecasts near Florida’s coastline, where the crew's Dragon capsule will splash down following its five-day orbital mission, SpaceX announced Thursday night.
Conspicuous by its absence in SpaceX's statement: any references to the newly launched Federal Aviation Administration investigation of the Falcon 9 first-stage booster fleet. The company has not publicly commented on the investigation — where the FAA said a return to flight is based on determining "any system, process, or procedure" related to Wednesday's fiery booster anomaly does not affect public safety. Later Friday, FAA confirmed SpaceX was cleared to resume launches.
Polaris Dawn, a privately funded mission featuring four civilian crew members, will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The rocket and Dragon remain healthy and vertical at the pad, SpaceX reported — but widespread showers and thunderstorms are forecast after the Labor Day weekend into mid-week.
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The Dragon spacecraft will target splashdown at one of seven sites off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. Looking ahead on the calendar, the National Hurricane Center is tracking two tropical disturbances that are slowly approaching the Caribbean Sea. The first, which has a 40% chance of cyclonic formation, could impact Florida by next weekend.
"I think Polaris Dawn is going to be really careful about when they launch and making sure that they're ready, because it's a very unique mission," said Addie Dove, a planetary scientist and associate professor in physics at the University of Central Florida.
"I think when it's just launching Starlink satellites, they can push the limits with weather and other things like that, and they don't have to worry about it as much. But when it's humans and a really unique launch scenario, they just have to be a lot more careful about it," Dove said.
In a Thursday night tweet, Polaris Dawn mission commander Jared Isaacman said the primary factor driving launch timing is splashdown weather within Dragon's limits. He added, "unlike an ISS mission, we don’t have the option to delay long on orbit, so we must ensure the forecast is as favorable as possible before we launch."
The National Weather Service forecast for Jacksonville, near a traditional NASA-SpaceX splashdown site, calls for the following odds of showers and thunderstorms: 70% Tuesday; 90% Wednesday; and 80% Thursday. Similarly, the precipitation forecast for Panama City Beach is 80% Tuesday, 80% Wednesday and 70% Thursday.
After previously logging 22 flights, a Falcon 9 booster tipped over and fell Wednesday amid heavy flames after landing aboard SpaceX's drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. That uncrewed Falcon 9 had launched a payload of Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
In a Wednesday statement announcing the booster investigation, FAA officials said they must approve SpaceX’s final report on the anomaly, including any corrective actions — and "a return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety."
"It's been kind of wild this week," Dove said.
"My quick take is, this is how the process works, right? I think we're so used to things going well for SpaceX that we forget that a lot of what they're doing is still experimental. The fact that they did land a booster for 22 straight landings is pretty remarkable. So I don't think that it's super dramatic for SpaceX either way that it crashed," Dove said.
"Obviously they're disappointed, and obviously there are some failure modes that they're internally going to be investigating anyway. But I think the FAA investigation is just par for the course for these companies," she said.
Polaris Dawn on-orbit schedule
Day 1: Launch, then pass through the inner regions of Earth's Van Allen radiation belt to 1,400 km above the surface. That represents the highest altitude astronauts have reached since Apollo 17, the final moon mission, back in December 1972.
Day 2: Prepare for spacewalk during a suited "mobility demo;" descend to a 700-km cruising orbit.
Day 3: Don spacesuits, perform leak checks and conduct spacewalk.
Day 4: Test a Starlink laser-based communication system.
Day 5: Prepare for atmospheric reentry.
Day 6: Reenter Earth's atmosphere and splash down at one of seven sites off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX: Polaris Dawn launch still on hold due to poor Florida weather