Hurricane Idalia impacts rocket launch schedule; Kennedy Space Center preps

Jun 25, 2023

As Hurricane Idalia churns off the southwest coast of Florida, the impacts on Brevard's local space economy are already being felt.

A weather report by the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron projected outerband rain to begin on the Space Coast as early as Tuesday afternoon, with most of the activity set to occur Wednesday.

"Weather for mid-week will be defined by Idalia as it is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane and lift into the eastern Gulf of Mexico into the Florida Gulf coast through Wednesday as a major hurricane," forecasters said in a report Tuesday. "Outer rainbands are likely to start reaching the Spaceport Tuesday afternoon, with an increase in squalls as well as sustained winds into Wednesday as the system traverses the Florida peninsula."

As a result, launch activity throughout the week has already begun to shuffle.

For the time being, operations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station remain unchanged, though preparations for the possibility of high winds and excess rain were beginning to get underway Tuesday morning.

"The storm will push north/northeastwards in the Gulf, with the National Hurricane Center forecasting a landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida Wednesday morning as a Category 3 hurricane," forecasters said in a report Monday. "Wednesday morning is when the Space Coast will experience the impacts from Idalia."

Late Monday, United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 41 began the hours-long process of standing down from a launch attempt of an Atlas V rocket originally set for liftoff Tuesday morning.

Rather than try to launch ahead of the storm, ULA decided to keep the high-profile national security mission with a secretive payload for the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office grounded. The process to roll the 196-foot Atlas V rocket back to ULA's vertical integration facility from its launch pad for protection from the storm began Tuesday morning.

"Out of an abundance of caution for personnel safety, a critical national security payload, and the approaching Tropical Storm Idalia, the team made the decision to return the rocket and payload to the vertical integration facility (VIF)," ULA released in a statement Monday.

The next attempt to launch the NROL-107 mission was still unknown as of Tuesday. "We will work with our customer and the range to confirm our next launch attempt, and a new date will be provided once it is safe to launch," ULA said.

Hurricane Idalia live updates:Brevard County under tropical storm warning

Rocket launch schedule:Upcoming Florida launches and landings

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of another batch of Starlink internet satellites set for Thursday from the Cape's Launch Complex 40 still appeared to be on the Eastern Range's schedule, though the company hadn't yet confirmed the Starlink 6-13 mission. The weather outlook for an on-time liftoff of that mission sometime between 7 p.m. and midnight Thursday is bleak.

Forecasters projected conditions to be only 10% "go" at the opening of the launch window and improve to just 40% "go" by the end.

"Idalia is expected to be out of the vicinity by early Thursday, but its trailing trough that merges with the cold frontdropping into Florida will continue to provide a focus for widespread showers and storms through late week," forecasters said.

"For the primary launch window late Thursday, west-southwesterly flow will likely focus ongoing activity towards the coast in the evening with widespread activity ongoing at window open," forecasters said in a report Tuesday. "With the presence of the boundary, it’s unclear how much clearing will be possible into the window, but some small decrease in activity is expected."

Meanwhile, in space, four members of NASA's Crew-6 mission, which launched to the space station in March, wait for an opportunity to come home. Initially slated to depart the station five days after the arrival of Crew-7 on Sunday, the quartet will spend at least one extra day in space.

NASA said Monday that the Crew-6 departure wouldn't occur until Saturday, Sept. 2, at the earliest. However, the agency did not say whether this schedule shift was impacted by Hurricane Idalia or because Crew-7 launched a day later than anticipated after teams scrubbed a first launch attempt from Kennedy Space Center on Friday.

For the Crew-6 astronauts to come home, they must splash down somewhere off the Florida coast. Currently, Florida has hurricanes churning off both coasts, category 4 Hurricane Franklin in the Atlantic basin and Hurricane Idalia off in the south Gulf of Mexico, which is expected to rapidly intensify into a major storm over the next day.

How these weather systems will impact a Crew-6 return this weekend remains to be determined.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Patrick Space Force Base, and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are well-equipped to ride out storms in Florida. While precautionary measures were beginning to take effect Tuesday morning, operations remained largely unchanged as leaders continued to keep a watchful eye on Hurricane Idalia.

"The safety of the NASA Kennedy workforce and their families is our priority. Center leaders are monitoring the storm’s track and assessing potential impacts to the area," a representative from Kennedy Space Center told FLORIDA TODAY. "Teams across the center have secured property in anticipation of high winds. We will continue monitoring the storm and taking the actions needed to protect our workforce and facility."

The Center advised all employees to contact their supervisors "for guidance regarding on-site and remote work."

Space Launch Delta 45, which oversees operations at both Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Fore Station, posted to social media that, "SLD 45 leadership is monitoring the evolving Tropical Storm Idalia, & safety is top priority."

So far, neither the Cape nor KSC have entered into any phase of HURCON status. If the first step in activation status is put into place, HURCON V, it will only be when sustained tropical storm force winds exceeding 58 mph are expected to impact the area within 96 hours.

For the latest, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.

Contact Jamie Groh at [email protected] and follow her on X.com at @AlteredJamie.

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