Hurricane Milton Strands Astronauts In Space
Not all of the persons who found themselves in the wake of Hurricane Milton were inside the state of Florida. The astronauts part of the Crew-8 mission aboard the International Space Station saw their departure from the vessel above the Earth’s orbit as leadership at NASA determined that weather conditions on the ground were far too severe for their scheduled return. The crew saw their date postponed yet again after the severe storm pushed their earliest arrival date back to October 13.
Astronauts Expected Back October 10th
Prior to Hurricane Milton making its landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast Wednesday, the astronauts had been expecting to touch down on the Earth as soon as October 10.
But the looming storm and its potentially dangerous aftermath proved to be too much risk for the space agency to take when it came to attempting a landing mission back home.
The world will wait until NASA and the astronauts conduct a scheduled briefing on the return trip as the rest of Florida begins the daunting task of search and rescue, cleanup, and rebuilding.
The briefing is set for 11 a.m. on October 11 and will likely not be the final post-Hurricane Milton meeting that takes place prior to the crew’s departure from space.
On The International Space Station
The astronauts that were above the Earth during Hurricane Milton are Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps. Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin was also a part of the team that departed aboard SpaceX Dragon craft and docked to the International Space Station on March 5, 2024.
The members of the Crew-8 team joined the space station’s Expedition 70 crew that were already in orbit.
NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Furukawa Satoshi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub welcomed the team it linked up to the orbiting craft and opened the hatches at 4:13 a.m.
Monitoring The Situation
NASA television and the government agency’s website have been working to provide live and continuous coverage throughout the SpaceX Crew-8’s mission.
A crew blog dating back to the days prior to their departure on March 3 gives first person accounts from the various members of the team and details of their mission.
Both SpaceX and NASA will continue to monitor the situation with additional delays a possibility.
Risk In The Splashdown
Though the storm has passed over Florida, the rough waters left in the wake of Hurricane Milton are among the biggest risks for astronauts should they have gone ahead with the scheduled splashdown.
Recovering the members of Crew-8 either from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or across Florida into the Atlantic Ocean would be a great risk. NASA maintains that “safety is always the top priority” when it comes to timing a crew’s launch into space or their return home.
Impacting Other Launches
A storm as severe as Hurricane Milton has also impacted other missions beyond our planet’s atmosphere, most notably the launch of the Europa Clipper mission.
While this launch has no astronauts on board, it will carry the equipment to further study Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons.
This liftoff was originally slated for mid-October, but with the need for the launching station at Cape Canaveral to stabilize post-storm, its delay was inevitable.
Sources: NASA, The Daily Galaxy
