{"id":11423,"date":"2022-06-30T17:11:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T09:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/atlas-5-launch-scrubbed-due-to-stormy-weather\/"},"modified":"2022-06-30T17:11:34","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T09:11:34","slug":"atlas-5-launch-scrubbed-due-to-stormy-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/atlas-5-launch-scrubbed-due-to-stormy-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas 5 launch scrubbed due to stormy weather"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_57693\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57693\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-57693\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220630scrub1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220630scrub1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220630scrub1-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220630scrub1-678x376.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220630scrub1-768x426.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-57693\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">ULA\u2019s Atlas 5 rocket, with a lightning strike in the background, during Thursday evening\u2019s countdown. Credit: United Launch Alliance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Officials scrubbed the launch of an Atlas 5 rocket for the U.S. Space Force Thursday due to the risk of lightning from nearby thunderstorms, delaying the liftoff of the $1.1 billon mission until Friday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Weather conditions Friday are also forecast to be iffy for launch, with a 40% chance of favorable weather during the two-hour window opening at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT).<\/p>\n<p>United Launch Alliance teams loaded 66,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the Atlas 5 rocket Thursday afternoon. The launch team filled the the first stage with 25,000 gallons of rocket-grade kerosene fuel during preparations Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Engineers discussed a problem with a transducer in the Atlas first stage\u2019s propellant utilization system, but officials concluded the issue wasn\u2019t a risk and determined the rocket has enough redundancy to proceed with the countdown and launch.<\/p>\n<p>That decision left the weather as the only concern for launch during Thursday\u2019s window, which opened at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The launch team paused the countdown during the two-hour launch window in hopes the storms would clear the area, but persistent lightning and cloud cover forced officials to scrub the launch around 7:30 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n<p>The launch team drained cryogenic propellants from the Atlas first stage and the Centaur upper stage, and configured systems for another countdown beginning at 10:40 a.m. EDT (1440 GMT) Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Atlas 5 rocket is poised to haul two experimental Space Force satellites into a geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (about 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.<\/p>\n<p>One of the payloads, called the Wide Field of View Testbed, will demonstrate a next-generation infrared sensor that could better detect and track heat plumes from foreign missile launches. The other spacecraft is called the USSF-12 Ring, and it hosts multiple classified experiments and technology demonstration payloads, according to the Space Force.<\/p>\n<p>The mission will mark the fourth flight of an Atlas 5 rocket this year, and the 94th Atlas 5 launch overall.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ULA\u2019s Atlas 5 rocket, with a lightning strike in the background, during Thursday evening\u2019s countdown. Credit: United Launch Alliance Officials scrubbed the launch of an Atlas 5 rocket for the U.S. Space Force Thursday due to the risk of lightning from nearby thunderstorms, delaying the liftoff of the $1.1 billon mission until Friday evening. Weather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}