Astronauts, Satellites Track Dangerous Hurricane Harvey from Space (Video, Photos)

As the coast of Texas prepares to be pummeled by the fast-approaching Hurricane Harvey, NASA satellites and astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are keeping an eye on the potentially life-threatening storm.

Yesterday (Aug. 24), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded Harvey from a tropical storm to a hurricane as weather satellites observed the storm gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico. Harvey is projected to make landfall over Corpus Christi, Texas, by midnight tonight (Aug. 25) and could linger over Texas and Louisiana for up to five days. The huge amounts of rainfall brought by the hurricane are expected to cause "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding" in parts of Texas and Louisiana, the NHC said in a public advisory.

NASA released new video yesterday of Hurricane Harvey swirling over the gulf as seen from the ISS, which orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. ISS crewmembers also shared their own photos of Harvey. [Hurricane Harvey: Photos of the Massive Storm from Space]

"God bless Texas, may you weather the storm as you always have," NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik tweeted on Thursday.

See more

A few hours later, his crewmate and fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer tweeted another view and wrote, "Oh boy — looks like a ton of rain is about to unload. Here's a prayer for family, friends & everyone in #HurricaneHarvey's path — stay safe."

See more

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have several satellites monitoring the storm: two GOES weather satellites, the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) core observatory satellite and the Aqua satellite. The European Space Agency is also watching Harvey with the agency's Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite.

NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, which lies a little over 200 miles (320 km) northeast of where Harvey is projected to make landfall, will be hit by the storm, but the facility remains open at this time. Houston has been placed under a flood watch and could see up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rainfall between Friday and Tuesday (Aug. 29), according to JSC's Emergency Management office.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.