I used to love watching shuttle launches, and they would sometimes delay missions a day or two due to weather, even if the rain/snow would be over in a few hours. Why couldn’t they just wait instead of delaying?
In: Planetary Science
Position of the Earth compared to the intended destination of the payload and the fuel required to reach destination.
There are some launch windows that are “Instantaneous”, meaning it *HAS* to launch at that time, or the payload will miss its mark. This is why they will wait 24 hours if they cannot make the exact time, for the time and destination to come back around to the correct spot again, also factoring in the travel time of the payload to reach its destination, if they miss the “Slot”, the destination may not be there when the payload arrives.
Sort of the same reason they can only launch to Mars once every couple of Years, because of the position of Mars and Earth in relation to the Sun.
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