After a weather delay, SpaceX plans to launch its Falcon 9 CRS-19 Commercial Resupply Service mission on Thursday. Assuming the weather works out, you’ll be able to watch the entire launch live today on the NASA livestream above.
“Standing down today due to upper altitude winds and high winds as sea creating dynamic conditions around the Of Course I still love you droneship,” SpaceX tweeted just after 9 a.m. PT on Wednesday, when the launch was originally scheduled.
Standing down today due to upper altitude winds and high winds at sea creating dynamic conditions around the Of Course I Still Love You droneship – next launch opportunity is tomorrow at 12:29 p.m. EST, 17:29 UTC
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 4, 2019
SpaceX now plans to launch the rocket at approximately 9:29 a.m. PT Thursday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. You can watch the launch starting about 20 minutes before the launch, or roughly 9:00 a.m. PT — assuming the weather works out.
The CRS-19 will be the 19th resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft being used in the launch was also used in the fourth and 11th resupply missions to the ISS.
For this mission, the SpaceX rocket will be bringing up “supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support dozens of the more than 250 science investigations and technology demonstrations that will occur during Expeditions 61 and 62,” according to a press release from NASA about Wednesday’s launch.
The Dragon spacecraft was originally scheduled to reach the ISS on Saturday, December 7, and remain there until January 4. Those dates have likely shifted by a day now that the launch has been delayed.
The Dragon spacecraft was successfully able to dock with the space station this past March, becoming the first American spacecraft in history to dock with the ISS autonomously. It was even able to land off of the Florida coast safely.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster also launched the Crew Dragon capsule into orbit on July 25. During that mission, the Dragon capsule carried 5,500 pounds worth of equipment for experiments and ongoing scientific research to supply the ISS.
While it has brought loads of equipment up to the ISS, the goal is still to carry a crew of astronauts to the ISS for the Demo-2 mission with NASA, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said he hopes will happen in 2020 if all goes as planned.
The Dragon is one of many of SpaceX’s spacecrafts that the company is working on launching into space. Aside from the Dragon, there’s also the Starhopper, which is the prototype rocket for the company’s Starship. SpaceX hopes to eventually use Starship as a commercial spacecraft that would be able to take off and land again, like an airplane.
