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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- Late last night the 178-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket was moved out of its hangar at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral and positioned on the launch pad. Today the rocket and Dragon capsule sit in the Florida sun waiting for tomorrow's 4:55 a.m. ET launch. The launch pad is leased by SpaceX from the Air Force and is the location of the previous two Falcon 9 launches.
Like everything at SpaceX, keeping costs low is the theme on the launch pad just as it is at the factory. The company has reclaimed items from the scrap heap and opted for water instead of concrete to keep the noise down.
The pad itself has been in use for decades and was used to launch Titan rockets between 1965 and 2005. Now it is one of two launch sites used by SpaceX, the other being at Vandenberg Air Force base in California. The company plans to develop a third launch pad of its own in the near future.
Tomorrow's launch window is a "near instantaneous" opportunity to lift off and make it to the International Space Station. The narrow window is dictated by the orbital path of the ISS and the need to preserve as much propellant as possible for the demonstration mission, rather than chasing the station on orbit. If the launch window is missed, the next satisfactory opportunity would not happen until Tuesday. There are other chances to launch, but they would require too much propellant to rendezvous with the ISS.
SpaceX has yet to perform a flawless countdown to launch during any of its previous missions. At a Friday press conference, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell acknowledged the delays during previous countdowns, but put the odds of a launch tomorrow at "better than 50/50." The weather forecast is relatively good, with only a 30 percent chance of weather interfering with the launch.
Photo: Jason Paur/Wired
