On Wednesday (Sept. 25), the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced that Helene — a major storm currently inundating Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Western Cuba — has reached Category 1 hurricane status. Over the next day, Helene will head toward Florida's Gulf Coast.
Furthermore, the NHC projects that Helene will only increase in intensity before making landfall in Florida on Thursday (Sept. 26) evening — a path that, in fact, convinced NASA and SpaceX to delay the launch of the Crew-9 astronaut mission from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, pushing it from Thursday to Saturday (Sept. 28).
