ORLANDO, Fla. — As NASA inches closer to a future return to the moon, its first leap toward its moonshot goal — Artemis I — is planned to launch during the peak of hurricane season and could face a gale of problems.
NASA is targeting three potential launch days from Aug. 29-Sept 5. from Kennedy Space Center. Those dates also happen to be within the first half of what meteorologists refer to as the peak of hurricane season, which typically sees more Atlantic tropical storm production from mid-August to mid-October.
Statistically, the day with highest frequency of hurricane activity is Sept. 10 but the days leading up to it, from Aug. 15 onward, are when some of the most powerful hurricanes have been traditionally observed: hurricanes Andrew, Frances, Ivan and Katrina. That poses a potential problem for NASA’s launch pads and its 322-foot-tall Artemis I rocket stack hoping to launch from the most tropical-storm-prone state in the country.
