CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – March is a busy month for rockets launching from the Space Coast.
Rocket will land in highest winds ever at Cape Canaveral tonight. This is intentional envelope expansion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2020
It all starts Friday night with SpaceX sending its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, News 6 partner Florida Today reported.
These are the things to know for the launch:
• Teams are looking to launch at 11:50 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40. The launch window is instantaneous, meaning the rocket must launch at that time or be forced to delay another day.
• Weather forecast is 60% “go,” with the primary concern being liftoff winds, according to the 45th Weather Squadron.
• In the event of a delay or scrub, weather improves to 90% “go” for a Saturday launch.
• The rocket’s first stage booster will target an automatic landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Landing Station about eight minutes after liftoff.
• This will be the second time SpaceX flies this booster. It had previously flown for the company's 19th resupply mission to the ISS.
• This will also be the third flight of the Dragon 1 capsule, having previously flown for the company’s 10th and 16th resupply missions to the space station, according to SpaceX.
• Onboard the spacecraft are over 5,600 pounds of supplies and payloads, including materials to supports dozens of the more than 250 science investigations occurring on the space station.
• After this mission, SpaceX will retire the Dragon 1 capsule as it makes way to introduce its newer, more advanced spacecraft: Dragon 2. The newer spacecraft is capable of flying to space up to five times, whereas Dragon 1 was only certified to re-fly up to three times.