Historic SpaceX launch postponed for weather concerns

- Bad weather has postponed Wednesday's first launch of NASA astronauts from Florida in nine years. The action begins Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) with a live, two-hour broadcast of the launch by SpaceX and NASA. Launch America: Mission to Space Live ABC News and the National Geographic Channel have teamed up for two days of coverage for SpaceX's Demo-2 launch in what they've billed as "Launch America: Mission to Space Live", according to Space.com. This afternoon, NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon and fly to the International Space Station.

A decade on it is another president, Donald Trump, who will attend Wednesday's launch in Florida.

"We had just simply too much electricity in the atmosphere", NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said later.

After NASA's Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, the USA space agency has relied on the services of Russia's Soyuz rockets to ferry astronauts to the ISS. "It's now 2020 and we're only on the cusp, but we are here". He and others hoped the public-private partnership would help pave the way for the commercial sector to soon handle more routine missions.

The move by NASA to invest in privately-developed spacecraft - a more economic proposition than spending tens of billions of dollars developing such systems itself, as it had done for decades - was started under the presidency of George W. Bush for cargo, and later under Barack Obama for human flight.

"NASA looking to do the deep space exploration, get things set so we can go back to the moon", Altman said. Then SpaceX began developing the ship Crew Dragon.

Success might also be a boon for the Sunshine State. The production will be jointly hosted with NASA, but John Insprucker - a top engineer at SpaceX - will host the bulk of commentary for the rocket company. "It's roughly analogous to the Port of London in the British Empire". The astronauts will dock with the ISS on May 29 at 1:39 a.m. AEST. Officials said Behnken and Hurley would likely return when weather permitted.

NASA chose Doug Herley and Bob Behnken to pilot SpaceX's test flight, Demo-2/ Both already have flown two space subtle missions in their career.