Thursday night gave NASA technicians their first chance to inspect the space agency’s large lunar rocket after Hurricane Nicole exposed the rocket to strong winds.
On Friday afternoon
NASA will test, power and perform minor repairs on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, according to a tweet by Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development. He noted that an initial inspection on Thursday night showed minor damage to the SLS missile, such as « loose joints and cracks in the weather shield. »
NASA had been scheduled for Monday
Nov. 14 as the next launch attempt for SLS and the space agency’s Artemis 1 mission, but pushed the launch to Nov. 16, when it became apparent a tropical storm at the time Nicole would sabotage early launch attempts. When forecasts changed and it became clear that Nicole could intensify into a hurricane, it was too late to push the SLS back into the hangar at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, so the roughly $4 billion rocket pulled out in the open. Launch Pad 39B at Hurricane Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
Just before Nicole became a hurricane
NASA issued a statement that the SLS was rated for wind gusts of up to 85 mph. In a tweet, Mr Free said NASA sensors on the launch pad detected wind gusts of up to 82 miles per hour and 60 feet high at the launch pad.
However
The SLS rose 322 feet in the air, and forecasters tweeted that some sensors showed intermittent gusts of over 85 mph during Hurricane Nicole’s passage. For example, Orlando WESH 2 TV news meteorologist Eric Burris noted that sensor readings from the launch pad recorded winds of nearly 100 mph at 200 feet.
It remains to be seen whether these gusts caused lasting damage to the SLS
But Mr. Free plans to hold a news conference Friday at 3 p.m. EST to discuss NASA’s findings.
SLS and Orion are the cornerstones of NASA’s Artemis lunar program
Which aims to return humans to the moon by 2025 and establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface. The program’s first mission, Artemis 1, was a major unmanned test flight of the SLS rocket and Orion, the former propelling the latter along the moon, surrounding and The flight re-entered and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean..
Artemis I has been delayed multiple times because NASA aborted the first and second launch attempts in August and early September due to technical issues. Hurricane Ian and now Hurricane Nicole caused further delays.