by: WESH 2 News
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (WESH) – People living along the Space Coast may hear and feel sonic booms this week and that’s just from one of three launches set for lift-off in the coming days.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is preparing to send up a United Launch Alliance Delta Heavy 4 and two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
Gen. Doug Schiess says the 45th Space Wing is excited to take on a potentially historic week at Cape Canaveral, weather permitting.
One of the three missions marks the first time since the 60s that Florida has put a rocket into polar orbit, meaning an orbit perpendicular to a typical launch.
It’s also the launch expected to cause the sonic booms when its booster lands.
Much work and research have gone into making sure the launch won’t pose risks on Earth in its southbound trajectory.
“It will overfly Cuba but it will be at an altitude where we’re safe,” Schiess said.
Safety on the ground has been a major focus too during the pandemic.
“We take temperatures as we go into our operations centers, we wear face coverings,” Schiess said.
Hosting three launches with little time in between requires careful choreography.
“For instance, if you’re in the weather squadron, we might not be able to do everybody three separate crews, but those folks won’t interact with the range operations folks, or the surveillance folks,” Schiess said.
And if all goes as planned, for the crews and people who like watching rockets fly, this week gives three good reasons to look up.
Schiess said it’s unfortunate people will not be allowed to watch the launches from the Kennedy Space Center.
“I know they can watch it from the beaches and their homes, but we’d love to have a bunch of people up at Kennedy Space Center, we can’t do that right now but hopefully they have a chance to look at it from wherever they’re at and see some spectacular launches,” Schiess said.
This is the first time three launches have been scheduled from the Space Coast so close to one another in nearly 20 years.
So far, the weather looks favorable. The first launch window opens early Thursday at 2:12 a.m.
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