Weather scrubs Crew-11 launch, NASA and SpaceX to try again Friday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The next four humans in the parade of SpaceX launches from the Space Coast will have to wait at least another day for their trip to the International Space Station after weather caused a late scrub Thursday.

“Hold, hold, hold. We are standing down due to violation of weather rules,” came the callout from mission control with just one minute, seven seconds on the countdown clock. “Bad luck on weather there. We just got clipped by a cumulus cloud right over the pad, so ended up scrubbing for weather.”

“Too bad, but we’ll be ready next time,” replied Crew-11 Commander Zena Cardman, who along with her crewmates were strapped into their seats aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour atop a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A. They had been targeting a 12:09 p.m. Eastern time liftoff.

Cardman, fellow NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov will have another chance to launch Friday at 11:43 a.m. with more opportunities on Saturday and Sunday.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron has forecast an 85% chance for good conditions Friday. A backup to Saturday at 11:21 a.m. has similar launch conditions with cumulus clouds at the launch pad the same concern. Rough seas, though, could be an issue along the ascent corridor off the U.S. East Coast, which needs to be clear in case the crew has to abort for an emergency.

The quartet, who arrived at KSC on Saturday, had climbed on board SpaceX’s fleet-leading Dragon Endeavour, aiming to make its sixth trip to space. They had donned their spacesuits after 8 a.m. at the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building then rode over the launch pad in black Teslas with license plates that read “Live,” “Laugh” and “Launch.”

The crew were strapped into the spacecraft and ready to go with two hours before liftoff, but as the clock approached T-0, clouds rolled in and a lightning alert was issued over the space center.

“It’s disappointing, but there’s a reason we do it, and that’s to keep everybody safe,” said NASA astronaut and Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague, who was helping lead NASA’s broadcast commentary.

Hague talked about the mental shift the crew will have to get into.

“They’re already starting to think about what’s the next opportunity and then having to get into the psyche of ‘OK, let’s do this again,'” Hague said. “And it is to the T, to the minute, do it again. So it is very much a Groundhog Day.”

When it does launch, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said it will be groundbreaking for NASA use of a commercial spacecraft.

“We worked very hard with SpaceX to complete all the reuse activities for this vehicle. We had certified the vehicles – the Dragons – for only five flights. Now, we’ve completed all that work, and we’re really ready to go,” he said.

It was the same Crew Dragon that flew the first astronauts for SpaceX back in 2020, now part of a stable of five crew-capable Dragons. With Crew-11’s launch, SpaceX will have flown 74 humans across 19 missions in just over five years.

The first-stage booster for this mission is making its third flight and will aim for what will be SpaceX’s final use of Landing Zone 1 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

SpaceX warns of the possibility that one or more sonic booms could be heard across parts of Central Florida including Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties. The last use of the landing zone during the Axiom Space Ax-4 launch had reports of the boom heard as far as Lake County.

The mission will relieve the Crew-10 members who have been on board the space station since mid-March, but won’t undock until they complete a short handover period during with the space station population will grow from seven to 11.

Crew-11 will be on the station for at least six months, but NASA could stretch the mission to as long as eight months.

For its members, Cardman and Platonov are rookies while Yui is making his second trip having flown to the station a decade ago, and Fincke is making his fourth trip to space having last flown to the station as part STS-134, the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, as well as two previous missions on Soyuz spacecraft.

Cardman had originally been tapped to command the Crew-9 mission, but was bumped after NASA needed space on board to allow for the return flight to the two Boeing Starliner astronauts that were left behind on the station when their spacecraft was sent home without crew because of safety concerns.

Fincke and Yui had both been training to fly future crewed missions of Starliner, but were shifted to this SpaceX mission as Boeing’s beleaguered spacecraft continues to face delays.

With their arrival to the station, the orbiting laboratory will have welcomed 290 people from 26 nations. The station will mark 25 years of continuous human presence in November having began Expedition 1 in 2020. The Crew-11 crew will become of Expedition 73 when they arrive and continue on as part of Expedition 74 that begins in November when the next replacement crew from Russia arrives.

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