Weather Forces SpaceX CRS-6 Scrub

For most of the afternoon, it looked as if a steady breeze coming off the Atlantic Ocean would keep a series of storms away from Cape Canaveral and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sitting on the pad at SLC-40. And for a while, they did, as SpaceX made it to three minutes remaining in an otherwise trouble free countdown of the CRS-6 resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Eventually however, a storm slowly approaching from the southwest violated the 10 nautical mile safety zone around SLC-40, forcing a scrub due to the likelihood of lighting coming from anvil clouds.

The next attempt will be tomorrow, April 14th, at 4:10:40 PM EDT.  NASA television coverage begins at 3:00 PM EDT.

The launch forecast currently carries a 40%  risk of violating constraints.

The USAF 45th Space Wing weather office sums up the launch forecast as follows:

“The low level flow is expected to be southwesterly on Tuesday, and therefore may impede the westward migration of the sea breeze. This will keep the thunderstorm triggering mechanism much closer to the Spaceport, increasing the risk for lightning, cumulus cloud and anvil cloud rule violations. Maximum upper-level winds will be from the west at 40 knots at 45,000 feet.”

Officials have not stated when the next attempt would be if Tuesday’s launch is scrubbed also.