SpaceX set to launch Dragon cargo ship after high winds cause delay

With better weather expected, SpaceX engineers readied a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship for launch Thursday on a three-day flight to deliver crew supplies, spare parts and research material, including 40 mice, to the International Space Station. Also on board: Christmas presents and fresh fruit for the lab's six-member crew.

Delayed Wednesday by high upper-level winds, liftoff Thursday was targeted for 12:29:23 p.m. EST from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Forecasters predicted an 80 percent chance of acceptable ground weather and more benign higher-altitude winds.

How to watch the SpaceX launch:

• What: SpaceX is expected to launch a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station
• Date: Thursday, December 5, 2019
• Time: Liftoff is scheduled for 12:29:23 p.m. EST
• Location: Launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida
• Online stream: Live in the player above

The Dragon capsule perched atop the Falcon 9 is packed with nearly 6,000 pounds of crew supplies and equipment, along with science gear and a colony of 40 rodents, including eight genetically modified “mighty mice” that are part of a study to learn more about medications that might help astronauts counteract bone and muscle loss in space.

The spacecraft also will deliver fresh fruit to the crew, along with holiday gifts.

“As far as presents and so forth, I'm not sure I want to divulge anything,” said Kenny Todd, a senior space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “But I think Santa's sleigh is certified for the vacuum of space.”

The Dragon is the first of two rapid-fire cargo launches to the space station. At 4:34 a.m. Friday (12:34 p.m. local time), a Russian Progress freighter is scheduled for liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board are 1,433 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water and 3,014 pounds of dry cargo.

The SpaceX Dragon is expected to reach the station Sunday morning around 6 a.m., pulling up to within about 30 feet of the lab complex and then standing by while Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, operating the station's robot arm, locks onto a grapple fixture.

From there, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will take over, remotely operating the arm to pull the supply ship in for berthing at the forward Harmony module's Earth-facing port.

The Progress MS-13/74P spacecraft will reach the station Monday morning, executing an autonomous docking at the Earth-facing port of the Russian Pirs module around 5:38 a.m.

The cargo ship arrivals will set the stage for a flight readiness review next week to clear Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for launch on a long-awaited unpiloted test flight to the station. Liftoff atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket currently is targeted for December 19 with a landing in New Mexico on Christmas Eve.

NASA is counting on Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsules to end the agency's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz ferry ships to carry astronauts to and from the space station. NASA astronauts have not been able to launch aboard U.S. spacecraft since the space shuttle's retirement in 2011.

Boeing and SpaceX are both required to launch unpiloted test flights before initial flights with astronauts aboard. SpaceX completed an uncrewed flight to the station earlier this year, and Boeing's upcoming mission should set the stage for both companies to launch initial piloted test flights in the first half of 2020.