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
Rocket Science!
It’s very precise, and a launch window is calculated based on numerous factors that give the “best” window of launch to eliminate any and all possibilities of failure and mitigate as much risk as possible.
Things like wind speed, cloud formation, ambient temperature etc. all play a part in determining when the best time to launch is. The Big things though, is where is your target in relation to you.
If you want to intercept the ISS from Cape Canavral, you’re going to need to make sure to launch at a point where the ISS’s orbit is going to meet up with your launch vehicle, otherwise, you could literally end up on the wrong side of the planet from your target, and not enough fuel to make corrective maneuvers to reach your destination.
Everything going into space has to be measured to conserve as much fuel as physically possible and to reach the correct orbit, going the right speed, at the right time is hard, and you don’t want to waste what you don’t have to bring. So if you miss your launch window, it’s like missing your train or airplane. You can’t just call up another one like a taxi, you have to wait for the next departure window to arrive, and sometimes that can be days.
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