Things To Do In SW Florida

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX is back one day after a weather-related scrub to send the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Crew Dragon Endeavour is slated to lift off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:43 a.m. carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to space.

The first-stage booster for this mission is making its third flight and will aim for what will be SpaceX’s final use of Landing Zone 1 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

SpaceX warns of the possibility that one or more sonic booms could be heard across parts of Central Florida including Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties. The last use of the landing zone during the Axiom Space Ax-4 launch had reports of the boom heard as far as Lake County.

The quartet were sitting in Endeavour with one minute and seven seconds on the countdown clock Thursday when a storm cell forced a scrub of the mission’s first launch attempt. read more

By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press Transportation Writer

The National Transportation Safety Board on Friday enters its third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash between an Army helicopter and commercial jet in January.

Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that likely contributed to the collision that left all 67 people aboard both aircrafts dead, sparking Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to urge the Federal Aviation Administration to “do better” as she pointed to warnings the agency ignored years earlier.

Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near Ronald Reagan National Airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there.

It’s too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. A final report from the board won’t come until next year.

But it became clear this week how small a margin of error there was for helicopters flying the route the Black Hawk took the night of the nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001. read more

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s new tariff rates of up to 41% on U.S. imports from dozens of countries drew expressions of relief Friday from some countries that negotiated a deal or managed to whittle them down from rates announced in April. Others expressed disappointment or frustration over running out of time after hitting Trump’s Aug. 1 deadline for striking deals with America’s trading partners.

The new rates are due to take effect on Aug. 7, but uncertainty over what Trump might do next remains. The way ahead for China, which runs the largest trade surplus with the U.S., is unclear after talks earlier this week in Stockholm produced no deal. Trump has yet to say if he’ll extend an Aug. 12 pause on painfully high import duties on Chinese products.

The reaction from financial markets was muted. Benchmarks fell in Asia, with South Korea’s Kospi dropping nearly 4% after the tariff rate for the U.S. ally was set at 15%. The U.S. dollar weakened against the Japanese yen, trading at more than 150 yen per dollar. read more