The weather in Florida has delayed today’s Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). In fact, SpaceX is launching the payload for Grumman from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station rather than the typical launch facility in Virginia. The Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft with its 8,200 pounds of supplies will probably need to sit on the launch pad for a few more days until the weather clears.
Why is SpaceX launching a Grumman resupply mission, you might ask? Doesn’t Grumman have its own rocket? Yes, and no. It has launches most of its resupply missions on its own Antares rocket, but the newest version of the rocket, the Antares 330, is still being finalized and is not expected to be ready until next year. As a result, Grumman procured three flights from SpaceX.
The ability of the commercial parties to support one another’s missions is encouraging, just as the European Space Agency dependied on SpaceX while it developed a new generation of its Ariane rocket.
SpaceX is always there to help (at a cost, of course) as other rocket companies prepare for the challenges ahead. In the case of Northrop Grumman, it needed to move away from its reliance on Ukrainian/Russian rockets and create a more reliable supply chain.
Now we just need the weather to cooperate.
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