- New ship, the US has its own ship again: This is the space taxi that SpaceX has built for NASA
- Crew Dragon.The launch of the NASA and SpaceX manned flight is postponed to Saturday due to bad weather
- In Texas, the Starship spacecraft explodes during a test
Depending on how you look at it, there is a 50% chance that the new Crew Dragon spacecraft can be launched tonight, or a 50% chance that bad weather will force you to cancel it a second time. Both SpaceX, the company that built it, and NASA, which will carry two of its astronauts on board, prefer to see the glass half full and continue with plans for takeoff of the first manned spacecraft fully manufactured by a private company. .
It will also be the first mission with a crew that takes off from the US since 2011 NASA retired the shuttle fleet ( shuttle ) to focus on making a ship that could go to the moon and Mars. Since then, American astronauts travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and upon payment of $ 86 million per ticket.
Capsule details. Video: Emilio Amade.
The brand new Crew Dragon manufactured by the millionaire Elon Musk's company is due to take off this Saturday at 9:22 p.m. (Spanish time), 3:22 p.m. (local time), from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This is the second attempt, since last Wednesday bad weather forced the postponement of the launch just a quarter of an hour before the scheduled time, when the two crew, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley , were already ready to begin their journey.
Accompanied by their wives, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Vice President, Mike Pence, had arrived in Florida minutes before the launch was canceled, so they had to leave without witnessing the start of this important mission that, due to the strict security measures for the coronavirus crisis, had very few guests. The number of workers who are in contact with the two astronauts has also been limited to the maximum to prevent them from contracting Covid-19.
As reported by NASA, the weather forecast points to a 50% chance that the spacecraft could be launched this Saturday. If it is postponed, there will be a third attempt tomorrow Sunday at 9pm (on the peninsula).
Explosion of a SpaceX prototype
One of the axes of space exploration of the future will be the greater involvement of private companies, which are expected to develop and operate their own rockets and ships that allow to lower costs and that more people and institutions can travel to space. Both the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Starliner spacecraft that Boeing is developing - and that will also transfer NASA astronauts to the ISS - are being closely supervised by NASA engineers.
But the great anticipation for the launch of the Crew Dragon has been partially overshadowed in recent hours by the explosion of another SpaceX vehicle, Starship SN4 .
The prototype of this reusable vehicle that Elon Musk intends to use for his ambitious private exploration program - with planned trips to the Moon and even Mars - has been totally destroyed after a spectacular explosion that has caused a large fireball during a test of their Raptor engines in Boca Chica Texas, with no injuries reported.
SpaceX has not yet reported the cause of this accident during a static test in which only the engines were started.
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