SpaceX delays 1st astronaut launch for NASA due to bad weather

Mother Nature didn’t cooperate today. Elon Musk’s company was scheduled to launch its first-ever crewed mission, a test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) called Demo-2, this afternoon May 27 4.30 pm EDT (May 28 6.30 am AEST) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But bad weather has nixed that plan, pushing the lift-off back to Saturday May 30 at the earliest, NASA and SpaceX officials announced today.

Demo-2 has an instantaneous launch window: the capsule must launch at a specific time, when the space station is at a certain spot in its orbital path. The next attempt will be on Saturday at 3:22 pm EDT (1922 GMT). For those in Australia the launch will be on Sunday at 5.22 am AEST.

If that doesn’t work out, SpaceX could try again on Sunday (May 31) at 3.00 pm EDT (1900 GMT). For those in Australia this would be Monday June 1 at 5.00 am AEST.