NASA's Kennedy Space Center Prepares For Hurricane Irma

When Hurricane Harvey was barreling down on the Johnson Space Center in Texas, NASA made the decision to send any non-essential employees home. Only a skeleton staff rode out the storm from the center and stayed in contact with the International Space Station until the rain slowed and the roads cleared.

Now, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is facing a similar dilemma. As Hurricane Irma heads west from the Caribbean with 185 mile per hour winds that have not slowed in the last 24 hours, NASA is faced with a decision. The center is currently in its fourth stage of preparations for a hurricane named Hurricane Condition or HURCON, Florida Today reported.

A public affairs officer told Florida Today that the activation of stage four of the plan means managers are going over plans in case the storm hits including choosing teams that will stay at the center to essentially hold down the fort if need be.

Those teams would be made up of an emergency management officer, senior-level managers and representatives and partners from other companies NASA works with, like SpaceX and Boeing. So far no closures have been scheduled and KSC is just planning in case Irma does make its way toward the center.

The last time the center entered HURCON was during Hurricane Matthew in 2016. The storm was expected to pass Cape Canaveral with winds between 90 and 107 mph. Currently Irma’s wind speed is nearly double that.

The Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station both have a set plan for emergency situations like natural disasters or security concerns. As of Wednesday evening SpaceX was scheduled to launch a United States military plane called the Orbital Test Vehicle on Thursday. The launch was still expected to happen as of Wednesday evening with the weather at 50 percent favorable for the launch.

After launch the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket was expected to land upright at Cape Canaveral shortly after launch. It’s unclear whether or not the launch would be scrubbed and rescheduled. If the launch is scrubbed, a safe place will need to be found for the X-37B spaceplane.

Current Irma predictions from the National Hurricane Center and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show winds from the storm reaching the southern tip of Florida overnight on Friday and into Saturday morning. Cape Canaveral is a bit further up the coast and NHC was predicting winds would reach its location there around Saturday evening.

The actual storm, fiercest winds, rain and all will follow the winds. Likely reaching the southern tip of Florida around Sunday afternoon and Cape Canaveral about 12 hours later. However the forecast still isn’t finalized and the storm could still change paths.