The Air Force weather team that keeps canceling your rocket launches - The Verge
With less than 20 minutes to go before SpaceX’s first crewed flight, weather conditions remained miserable, forcing meteorologists at the Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron to deliver bad news to NASA and SpaceX. “It definitely hurts, especially when we have those hard requirements that when something hits, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Capt. Jason Fontenot, the space lift weather operations flight commander at the 45th Weather Squadron, said during a press call. “And we just kind of have to pass on the information, saying, ‘Even though we’re not at the launch window yet, this is very unlikely that we will see this take off today.’” Military personnel who work at the Squadron in Cape Canaveral, Florida are used to being the ones to call off the show. Fontenot and his team at Patrick Air Force Base are responsible for monitoring the weather surrounding all of the launches out of the Cape, which is home to the busiest spaceport in the United States. “It definitely hurts, especia...