A lightning strike near the launch site Cape Canaveral has been forced to reschedule the 11th commercial resupply mission of SpaceX. Yesterday after this incident, SpaceX informed about the launch delay and rescheduled date via the social platform.
According to SpaceX, the launch program scheduled on June 1, 2017, at 5.55 P.M (2155 GMT), twenty-five minute later the Lightning strike event. However, this event delayed the program and has been rescheduled for June 3 at 5:07 p.m. EDT or 21:07 UTC.
This is the first-ever cargo delivery to the astronauts living in orbit using a refurbished Dragon spacecraft, said by NASA. SpaceX reassured that the lightning did not hit any of SpaceX's equipment. According to Phys.org, the lightning hits within 10 miles radius (16 kilometers) of the launch pad.
According to lightning flight rule, every launch requires at least 30 min clear sky before the safe launch, said Mike Curie, NASA's spoke person. However, the delayed schedule at 5:07 pm (2107 GMT) on Saturday for an unmanned SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply mission will be broadcast live on NASA's website. The weather forecast for Saturday is 60 percent favorable, said NASA.
A report from Spacenews informed that the gumdrop-shaped SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has been refurbished for this mission. In 2014, this unmanned Dragon spaceship already used as a food and other necessary cargo-supply for the onboard crew in International Space Station. After the mission, this spaceship returned to the Earth and recovered after splashing down in the ocean intact.
Therefore, this spacecraft is going for refurbishment process to reuse in SpaceX's 11th commercial resupply mission. During the refurbishment program the heat shield of Dragon has been replaced, said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance.
In fact, the main objective of SpaceX is to make space flight cheaper and more environment-friendly. Regarding this, they have been trying to recycle rockets by powering their first stage engines and guiding them back to Earth after the launch. However, this effort saves the main portion of the rocket as well as the worth of millions of dollars.
After this rescheduled mission on Saturday, SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on the landing site at Cape Canaveral. The payload of the refurbished dragon has carried 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of science research, crew supplies, and hardware. Some of the supplies send for special experiments include live mice to study the effects of osteoporosis. Besides this, the cargo also has fruit flies for research on microgravity's impact on the heart.
Additionally, it also stacked with solar panels and equipment to study neutron stars. Surprisingly, the rescheduled SpaceX mission will conduct from NASA's historic Launch Pad 39A. This mission will be the 100th space launch after the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s.