NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper mission rode out Hurricane Milton, which swept by means of Florida late Wednesday (Oct. 9) and early Thursday (Oct. 10).
The Europa Clipper spacecraft and its Falcon Heavy rocket have been secured inside a SpaceX hanger close to their launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy House Middle in Florida, company officers acknowledged on X, previously Twitter.
“The security of launch workforce personnel is our highest precedence, and all precautions will likely be taken to guard the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” Tim Dunn, NASA’s Launch Providers Program senior launch director for Europa Clipper, mentioned in the Oct. 9 X submit, which featured a photograph of Clipper inside its payload fairing, which was itself encircled by a metallic blue cage.
The $5 billion Europa Clipper mission will examine the habitability of the Jupiter moon Europa, which has an enormous ocean beneath its icy shell. Clipper’s launch has been indefinitely delayed from the initially deliberate Oct. 10 as a result of hurricane. The launch window extends to Nov. 6.
Associated: Dragon’s-eye view: Astronaut captures superb photographs of Hurricane Milton from house (pictures, video)
KSC is among the many 1000’s of companies and different organizations throughout Florida with restricted or no entry to energy within the wake of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall as a Class 3 storm on the state’s western coast. KSC has supplied no updates since Wednesday.
“Tropical storm power winds are anticipated to achieve the spaceport by Wednesday night, with tornadoes doable forward of Milton’s heart of strategy,” NASA officers wrote of KSC’s standing in a weblog submit, forward of the storm’s arrival.
The KSC guests heart can also be closed no less than by means of at the moment (Oct. 10), officers beforehand wrote on X.
Milton’s arrival can also be affecting operations on the Worldwide House Station. Crew-8, the eighth operational astronauts mission to the ISS by SpaceX, is delayed in its departure, and NASA expects to replace the timing on Friday (Oct. 11). The latest goal date for departure for the 4 astronauts of Crew-8 was Sunday (Oct. 13).
