NASA Workers Shield Space Shuttles, Pluto Probe From Hurricane Wilma

The Aqua satellite's MODIS instrument captured this image of Hurricane Wilma on October 23, 2005. CREDIT: NASA. Click on image to enlarge.

NASA's Florida spaceport stood all but empty Monday, with only an emergency crew watching over space shuttles and planetary probes while winds from Hurricane Wilma howled outside.

The space agency closed its Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral as Hurricane Wilma struck southwest Florida. By 11:00 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) today, the storm had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane - down from Category 3 at landfall - with maximum winds near 105 miles per hour (165 kilometers per hour).

At KSC, where most of NASA's 13,000 spaceport workers were advised to stay home, sustained winds were blowing at about 57 miles per hour (91 kilometers per hour) - or about 50 knots - with heavy rain and stronger winds expected before 2:00 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), KSC officials said.

"It's a very rainy day here," said NASA's George Diller, a KSC spokesperson, in a telephone interview. "We can't see that it's gotten into anything yet."

A tornado, one of several spawned by Hurricane Wilma, touched down near KSC, but did not appear to damage the spaceport.

"Fortunately it's not moving toward any of our facilities," Diller said of the twister.

A small crew watched over NASA's three space shuttles - Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour - which sat in their hangars with their payload doors closed to protect against leaks, KSC officials said.

"There are no leaks in the hangars and the doors are sandbagged," Diller said, adding that NASA's New Horizons Pluto probe is safely stowed in its transportation canister. "The Pluto spacecraft is doing fine."

Hurricane Wilma is the latest storm to force the closure of a NASA facility.

In September, NASA evacuated its Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas as Hurricane Rita approached the western Gulf Coast. NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi also hunkered down during that storm.

Michoud, which builds the external tanks for NASA's space shuttles, and Stennis were also damaged in late August by Hurricane Katrina, which decimated the city of New Orleans and the Mississippi coast.

KSC officials said they expect the spaceport to reopen Tuesday after Hurricane Wilma has passed.

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