Shuttle launch weather update

If all goes well, the Crew Dragon will reach orbit about 12 minutes after liftoff, kicking off a hour rendezvous with the International Space Station. While the mostly automated chase unfolds, Hurley and Behnken will take hands-on control twice to test the crew's ability to manually steer the spacecraft if necessary.

Docking at the forward port of the station's Harmony module is expected around a. After extensive leak checks, Hurley and Behnken will be welcomed aboard the space lab by Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

The Crew Dragon astronauts are expected to remain aboard the station for at least six weeks and possibly as long as four months, helping Cassidy with a full slate of research and, possibly, with one or more spacewalks to install new solar array batteries and complete installation of a European experiment platform.

NASA managers are holding off making a decision on mission duration until they get a better idea how the capsule's solar cells hold up in the space environment. An eventual landing date also will depend on the summertime weather off the coast of Florida, where Hurley and Behnken will splash down, and the time needed to evaluate the capsule's performance in general before the next Crew Dragon flight, currently targeted for the end of August. Like the sunshade, the the mirror had to be folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5's nose cone.

Starting about 10 days after launch, six of the mirror's 18 hexagonal segments, three on each side, will be folded out and locked in place. Each segment can be tipped and tilted as required to achieve a razor-sharp focus, a process that will take months to complete. Throughout the deployments and commissioning process, Webb will continue its slow cool-down to reach the requirement operating temperature.

If all goes well, the first science images are expected about six months after launch. So that's the nerve-wracking time, that first month. And after that, the five months of cool down and commissioning, and then we can start doing the science. Bill Harwood has been covering the U.

He covered space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Successful launch for Webb space telescope. Arianespace The first stage's single hydrogen-fueled Vulcain 2 engine shut down 8-and-a-half minutes after launch and the flight continued for another 16 minutes on the power of the rocket's cryogenic second stage.

First, a piece of art made of gold, brass and aluminum — meant to signify how far the space program has come and how far humanity has to go in exploring the cosmos. Second is a mosaic of more than , photographs of graduates from all over the world. The composite image makes up an image of planet Earth. The 45th Space Wing, an arm of the US military, is constantly monitoring the weather — both at the launch pad and across a broad stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. The team uses all sorts of instruments, including radars and weather balloons, to ensure that the rocket will have a smooth ride all the way through the upper atmosphere.

And conditions are monitored at sea as well: If the rocket misfires and SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule needs to use its emergency abort system to jettison the astronauts to safety, they'll land in the ocean. And that means officials must ensure that landing won't be made more dangerous by a severe storm or rough waves, so they scan a massive stretch of the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the coast of Ireland.

The 45th Space Wing's weather squadron keeps in constant contact with SpaceX officials, and together they make the final call on whether to move forward or hold off on launch. Sort by Latest Oldest Dropdown arrow. If it is successful, the test flight could bolster the nascent private spaceflight industry and help pave the way for other commercial ventures, including missions to the moon or Mars. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. NBC News Logo.

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