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Journalism of Courage
SpaceX appears set to launch its 13th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA on Friday after scuttling several earlier attempts this month.
Meteorologists are predicting a 90 per cent chance of favourable weather for liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft, NASA said. The launch will take place from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Carrying about 4,800 pounds of cargo including critical science and research equipment, the Dragon spacecraft will spend a month attached to the space station. The mission will carry investigation that could help lower the risk to human life and critical hardware by orbital debris, NASA said.
It will also carry crew supplies, equipment and other scientific research to crew members living and working aboard the station. One such investigation will attempt to pull fiber optic wire from ZBLAN, a heavy metal fluoride glass commonly used to make fiber optic glass.
Launch Pad 40 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base was restored by SpaceX after an explosion that occured during a 2016 launch. Having perfected the re-launchable rocket technology, mastered by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launcher, the Elon Musk-led firm will make use of the technique for NASA for the first time. This will also bring the company closer to target of 20 launches in 2017.
