Hurricane Milton’s Imminent Landfall Officially Delays NASA’s Mission to Jupiter

NASA’s Europa Clipper, a mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, will not take off Thursday because of a Category 5 storm heading toward Florida.

The spacecraft launch window opens on October 10 and remains open until November 6. The Europa Clipper was supposed to launch on the 10th, but the unexpected rapid development of Hurricane Milton meant that the launch was officially postponed. In a statement, NASA said the probe and the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that will launch it into space are safely secured in a hangar at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA did not immediately give an updated date for the spacecraft’s launch.

Hurricane Milton is currently north of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, planning a northeasterly course toward Tampa, Florida. The storm rapidly increased in strength; it was a hurricane yesterday and we went from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in about seven hours. That strengthening speed places the storm behind only Hurricane Wilma (2005) and Hurricane Felix (2007) in the record books.

Category 5 hurricanes are the strongest on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, which classifies hurricanes based on wind speed. A Category 5 hurricane is one with winds greater than 157 miles per hour (253 kilometers per hour). You can read more about Hurricane Milton here.

Not yet airborne, the Europa Clipper doesn’t seem to be taking off. The mission, which will cost about $5.2 billion at the end of its life cycle, hit a snag in July when engineers realized parts of the spacecraft were not equipped to handle the powerful radiation from the Jovian system. Specifically, the transistors that help power flow in space needed to be re-tested to ensure they would continue to work in the face of charged particles flying around Jupiter and its moons.

The probe was finally cleared for launch on September 10, a month until the spacecraft’s launch date. Of course the team did not expect a Category 5 hurricane to head towards Florida, but such is the price of doing business on a peninsula with warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

“The safety of the launch crew is our highest priority, and every precaution will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” said Tim Dunn, executive director of NASA’s Launch Services program, in a NASA release. “Once we get the ‘all clear’ followed by the facility’s inspection and any recovery steps, we will determine the next launch opportunity for this flagship NASA mission.”

The Kennedy Space Center announced on social media this afternoon that the center is still open, but in HURCON III status, its hurricane preparedness status that involves protecting facilities, equipment and equipment 48 hours in advance of 50 sustained winds.

Meanwhile, Milton also disrupted suborbital flights; Tampa International Airport and St. Louis International Airport Pete-Clearwater has announced that they will be closing tomorrow, as the storm is expected to arrive.

The October 10 launch window has been scrapped on the mission’s website, which shows one three-hour launch window per day until the end of the month. Should it be launched in that window, the Europa Clipper is scheduled to reach the Jovian system in April 2030. It will make 80 orbits of Jupiter and 49 flybys of Europa, which is thought to contain a highly saline ocean beneath the ice, creating a compelling field for astrobiology: the study of life beyond Earth.