Here's why SpaceX delayed its first astronaut launch to the ISS

Everyone, including the President of the United States, was excited for SpaceX's first astronaut launch to the International Space Station, but at the last minute, the launch was canceled.

Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX, was scheduled to launch its first-ever crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 27th, but unfortunately, the launch was delayed just 20 minutes before liftoff due to bad weather rolling in. The launch has now be rescheduled for May 30th at the earliest, and hopefully, on May 30th, there are clear skies.

If there aren't clear skies on May 30th, SpaceX has said that it will attempt to launch again on May 31st at precisely 3 p.m EDT or 1900 GMT. The two astronauts that SpaceX plans on sending are NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. This mission to the ISS will mark the first orbital human spaceflight from the U.S since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in July 2011.

Since then, astronauts have been using Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the cost of $90 million per seat. As you could imagine, NASA isn't too happy about having to depend on the Russian spacecraft and is certainly counting on private companies such as Boeing and SpaceX to provide a cost-effective alternative.