NASA’s Europa Clipper mission must wait out Hurricane Milton earlier than it begins its five-year journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

The spacecraft had been scheduled to launch Thursday, Oct. 10, from the Kennedy Area Heart (KSC) at Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The extremely anticipated mission is in search of to search out out whether or not Europa and its subsurface ocean might help life.

However on Sunday, NASA and SpaceX introduced they’d be standing down the launch try “on account of anticipated hurricane circumstances within the space.”

Staff have secured the Europa Clipper craft in SpaceX’s hangar at Launch Complicated 39A at KSC, NASA mentioned, and the middle started getting ready for Hurricane Milton that day.

“The protection of launch group personnel is our highest precedence, and all precautions will probably be taken to guard the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” mentioned Tim Dunn, senior launch director at NASA’s Launch Providers Program, in an announcement.

The announcement got here as Milton was quickly intensifying from a tropical storm into one of many strongest hurricanes on file. On Monday night, the Nationwide Climate Service’s Nationwide Hurricane Heart reported Milton was a “probably catastrophic” class 5 hurricane with most sustained winds close to 165 mph (270 km/h), threatening the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

NASA’s Crew-8 mission has additionally been impacted by Hurricane Milton. The SpaceX Dragon capsule was scheduled to splash down Tuesday, Oct. 8, off the Florida coast carrying three NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut, all of whom have accomplished a crew rotation on the Worldwide Area Station that started in March. The Crew-8 undocking has now been postponed to no sooner than Sunday, Oct. 13.

KSC will face weakened Milton

Milton’s winds are forecast to ease barely earlier than making landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a still-deadly class 3 hurricane late Wednesday or early Thursday. Storm surge warnings are in impact for a lot of Florida’s Gulf Coast, with water rising probably by as a lot as 15 ft (4.6 meters) within the Tampa Bay space.

Nevertheless, by the point Milton crosses the peninsula and reaches the Area Coast, the storm is predicted to have weakened considerably to a class 1 hurricane, the Area Pressure’s forty fifth Climate Squadron reported on Monday. A class 1 hurricane has sustained winds between 74 and 95 mph (119 and 153 km/h).

Though KSC lies in roughly the middle of the cone of doable paths, it isn’t below a compulsory evacuation order. Nonetheless, “we do anticipate downed bushes, energy outages, doable cell service outages, and localized flooding,” mentioned the forty fifth Climate Squadron, which is answerable for KSC’s launch forecasts.

All of KSC’s unique main amenities — together with the huge Automobile Meeting Constructing (VAB) and the launch pads — have been designed to resist winds of no less than 104 mph (167 km/h). And each facility at KSC constructed after 1992’s Hurricane Andrew was constructed to a better normal of 130 to 135 mph (209 to 217 km/h).

However that doesn’t imply the middle is resistant to wind injury. In 2004, Hurricane Frances ripped over 800 exterior panels off the south aspect of the Automobile Meeting Constructing, leaving gaping holes requiring years of repairs — though ground-level winds at KSC by no means reached hurricane energy.

How NASA battens down the hatches

NASA has a well-defined hurricane preparation plan at KSC that it’s at the moment finishing up.

On Monday evening, KSC was at HURCON 3, or Hurricane Situation III, a standing activated when floor winds of over 58 mph (93 km/h) might arrive inside 48 hours. At HURCON 3, KSC’s protocol requires securing amenities, property, and gear.

HURCON 3 can also be when NASA briefs and deploys the ride-out group (ROT) — a core group of round 100 to 120 important personnel that can trip out the storm at KSC whereas all different staff are offsite. Because the storm nears, KSC will go to HURCON 2 and ultimately HURCON 1, with the ROT hunkered down and the ability closed.

Through the storm, the ROT’s job is to maintain important infrastructure operating. After the storm passes, the ROT will carry out an preliminary injury evaluation from a automobile and do what it may possibly earlier than handing off to a different group for a fuller evaluation and to begin restoration efforts.

When the ability is deemed protected, the remainder of the middle’s workers can return to work, together with launch groups, who will assess launch pads and processing amenities for storm injury. Solely then will NASA be capable of set a brand new timeline for Europa Clipper’s launch.

“As soon as now we have the ‘all-clear’ adopted by facility evaluation and any restoration actions, we’ll decide the following launch alternative for this NASA flagship mission,” mentioned Dunn.

The mission has each day launch alternatives throughout a window that runs by way of Nov. 6.