Close watch on weather at NASA’s Florida spaceport ahead of Axiom-4 launch – OXBIG NEWS NETWORK-OxBig News Network

SpaceX, NASA and Axiom Space are closely watching weather patterns at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida where Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three others look forward to their travel to the International Space Station (ISS), now scheduled for Wednesday.

Addressing a pre-launch press conference, SpaceX Vice President William Gerstenmaier said engineers had fixed some snags in the Falcon-9 rocket that were discovered during the static fire test and had gone unnoticed during the post-flight refurbishment of boosters.

The Axiom-4 commercial mission to the ISS had to be put off by a day to Wednesday evening due to inclement weather conditions in the flight path of the SpaceX rocket that would lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Gerstenmaier said engineers had discovered a locks leak that was previously seen on the booster during its entry on the last mission and was not fully repaired during the refurbishment.

“We are continuing to troubleshoot that. We should get that completed today and we will have that back in configuration. We are installing a purge that will essentially mitigate the leak if it still continues… on the launch day,” he said.

Gerstenmaier said engineers also discovered an engine 5 thrust vector control problem and the components associated with that have already been changed.

“We will be complete with all our work this (Tuesday) evening and we will be ready to support launch as early as Wednesday,” he said.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan said on Monday that due to weather conditions, the launch of the Axiom-4 mission for sending Indian Gaganyatri to the ISS was postponed from June 10 to June 11.

“The targeted time of launch is 5:30 PM IST on 11^th June 2025,” Narayanan said in a post on X on Monday.

Jimmy Tager, the Launch Weather Officer, 45^th Weather Squadron of the US Space Force, said there was surface high pressure to the south east of central Florida, which typically produces south west flow across the area.

“Now over the next couple of days, the surface high pressure is going to move further towards the north and that is going to switch our primary flow towards the south east. South east flow does tend to create some more isolated scattered showers to thundershowers in the morning time,” he said.

He added that even though the Probability of Violation (POV) was lower for the initial attempt (June 10), for the next attempt on Wednesday, the POV does increase to 20 per cent.

“And as we get to Thursday (June 12), the backup opportunity POV increases a little bit more to about 25 per cent. So though it is on the lower end, it does look like there could be a possibility of isolated scattered thunderstorms near the area at the launch time,” Tager said.

“But for the ascent corridor, even though the winds are pretty strong right now, it does look like winds are going to be improving over the next couple of days. As we get to Wednesday, winds will be even better, and Thursday, even better than Wednesday,” he added.

Dana Weigel, Manager, International Space Station Programme, NASA, said that there are launch opportunities till June 30. She was responding to questions on the launch window for the Axiom-4 mission due to unfavourable weather conditions.

“I think we will have the vehicle ready, the crews trained and the cargo loaded. I think we’re ready from a hardware standpoint. It is just kind of waiting for the weather to get there. In terms of launch opportunities, we have launch opportunities all the way through June 30,” Weigel said.

She said the Russian cargo vehicle ‘Progress’ will undock from the ISS later and a new one will dock for which there would be a brief cut-off for other launches.

“Then, we have a brief cut-off for high Solar Beta. Then we pick up again like in the middle of July. So, plenty of opportunities to fly the vehicle,” Weigel said.

The Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission comprises Commander Peggy Whitson, pilot Shukla and specialists Tigor Kapu of Hungary and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland.

The 14-day mission will “realise the return” to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary.