Weather of Arabia - The weather is essential and necessary to know when launching missiles and vehicles into space, we often hear about flights that were stopped and evacuated due to the weather, as was recently done with the UAE probe Hope heading to Mars , which was scheduled to launch its flight into space during July 15.
According to Stephen Sisilov, a blogger at NASA, weather conditions control many activities around the launch site, not just launches themselves. For example, high winds can prevent crews from lifting a spacecraft on top of a missile, and thunderstorms can stop All activities on the launch platform.
Thunderstorms can be one of the most dangerous weather conditions for rocket launches, especially in Florida where thunderstorms appear almost every day in summer.
These storms may strike the missile when it is raised for launch, and NASA has eight different weather standards at launch related to thunderstorms to ensure the missile is safe from lightning throughout the entire launch.
This includes making sure that no thunderstorms or lightning strikes are within 10 nautical miles of the launch pad within 30 minutes before the scheduled launch time.
Even if it isn't raining, a thick layer of clouds can be all it takes to delay the launch; Flying through a thin layer of clouds is generally harmless to a missile, but if the cloud layer is greater than 4,500 feet, and extends to freezing temperatures, it may cause problems that threaten the safety of the missile.
Even on a dry day with no rain or thunderstorms nearby, the weather can delay the launch.
Strong winds near the Earth or high in the atmosphere could be forced to postpone the launch of space flights due to possible missile control problems as it speeds into space.
Source: accuweather
Translation: Wedad Al-Saudi
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