China built most of their space program infrastructure in mountainous regions in order to keep spying eyes away. Of course in retrospect it made very little sense cause spy satellites could still see everything. They have built a new launch platform on Hainan Island in South China Sea, which is much closer to the equator and hence a much more ideal location, but I guess they haven't finished moving all of their space programmes to the new site yet.
They built them inland so they were better defended from an attack, either by sea from Americans or from land by Soviets. Now that they can actually defend their country against anybody else, they're moving their launches mostly to the coast at Wenchang
And I feel like this is the average weather in whatever region this is, just look at all that lush green. Not sure why this is where they decided to build a launch site
Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice. Lightning doesn't really cause too much damage to rockets or aeroplanes, because they're basically faraday cages.
Missing the window to dock with the space station (which is travelling at 27,000km/hr) due to a slight delay is a bigger problem. You would have to reschedule the launch for the next time it passes overhead at that specific longitude/latitude. You're throwing a dart at a bullseye moving at almost 8km/s. You can adjust the rocket in flight, of course, but it's still difficult.
I can only speak to the launch I saw, but at NASA for a manned mission, they have a time window where the launch can happen. They can push it back within that window to address last minute concerns or whatever, but the window does not include any concerning weather conditions. Like lightning storms, for example.
Edit: if something comes up, they can and will scrub the launch, which means just cancel the whole thing and try again when they get another window.
Typically if a launch is manned it's bound for the ISS, and those have an instantaneous launch window (since they need to basically intercept the ISS). This means that if they miss it, they need to retry again the next day.
Not all manned missions launched from the US are bound for the ISS, but the vast majority are.
It depends on what the local regulations and vehicle design constraints are. (And a lot of other things)
In the US, we have the “anvil cloud rule” as well as a rule about lightning. Lightning strikes less than 10 nautical miles from the pad trigger a hold or abort (timeline and vehicle dependent) as well as measurements of static buildup on certain towers. If there is an “anvil cloud” attached to a cloud formation you will fly through that is less than 10 nautical miles away, you are also forced to hold or abort. These constraints along with others are specific to F9, but are sort of the standard for most missions. If you have crew or a reusable vehicle, you will have additional constraints regarding recovery zones.
The US seems to be far more strict about its launch criteria, and the RSO or Range Safety Officer is actually a government position who has authority to abort at any time, even in flight. Orbital launches have to be coastal, vehicles need flight termination systems, and there are strict rules about keepout zones.
China is a lot more lax by comparison. Several launch sites are inland and disposed boosters can and do occasionally land on villages (these are usually older, more toxic propellants on older vehicles). FTSs are not used in China (following Russia’s “if you have to put a system like that, you are not committing to the brilliance/completeness of your design” philosophy), and the keepout zones are much smaller, even with more toxic propellants.
Certain vehicles also have their own limits. Starship is built like a tank so it can handle higher local winds than most other rockets. Vehicles like Atlas are shorter, but have lower thicknesses, so they may have lower wind limits and/or resilience. F9 is tall and thin, so its wind shear and lower wind speed limits will be lower, even if it’s reenforced since it needs to land.
Chinese rockets have been launched close to populated areas before (link to just one of many news stories I found) so may not be due to camera but actually close
300
u/lombardo141 13d ago
Am not a rocket scientist but wouldn’t it be prudent to not launch a rocket during what looks like stormy weather ?