OK, can someone explain why the Space Command (I refuse to call it a force) is delaying a GPS launch on a Falcon 9 until the end of June, but NASA still plans to go ahead with the Commercial Crew test flight in May?
5 thoughts on “Launch Delayed By Virus”
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… and SpaceX is going ahead with a Falcon 9 / Starlink launch next week. It’s currently scheduled for 21:32 EDT on Thursday, 16 April.
Personnel position / Travel?
Simple. Government employees went home with pay. If Elon’s folks went home, they missed out.
The following is from a Space Force press release published by Doug Messier over on Parabolic Arc:
“Some of the steps include procedural and facility modifications at the GPS III Launch and Checkout Capability (LCC) operations center and reducing the onsite crew size to provide adequate physical distancing, per CDC guidelines,” said Col. Edward Byrne, chief of Medium Earth Orbit Space Systems Division. “Once these efforts are completed, and the crews have rehearsed and are deemed proficient and ready to execute under these modified conditions, we fully intend to return to our launch cadence for deploying GPS III satellites.”
Part of the explanation seems to be caution anent the pandemic in the here-and-now. But part also seems to be based on making changes to physical facilities that would allow more or less normal operations to continue even in the face of extended incidence/recurrence of Covid-19 or an incidence of some future pandemic. In other words, the Space Force is preparing to be able to operate even in a “new normal” that includes occasional pandemics.
Strikes me as a good idea. I hope this is the start of such an initiative service-wide. It would be even better were it to include the entire DoD.
Thanks that that, Dick. That does make sense.