NASA’s new mega-rocket for the Moon will be returned to its hangar to be sheltered from a hurricane, the American space agency said on Monday September 26, an operation which indefinitely postpones the take-off of the long-awaited Artemis 1 mission, already postponed several times. NASA officials “met Monday morning and made this decision based on the latest forecast for Hurricane Ian”NASA wrote in a blog post.
The rocket, 98 meters high, is currently out on its launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The complex maneuver to get it back to the gigantic assembly building, a few kilometers away, should start at 11 p.m. (5 a.m. in France). The rocket will be transported on a huge platform rolling very slowly, in order to avoid as much as possible the vibrations that could damage it.
After reviewing the forecast for #Ian, we will roll our #Artemis I vehicle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to… https://t.co/mr68Yz1eNB
It’s about “good decision” so that the teams and the rocket remain ” safe “, tweeted Jim Free, associate administrator at NASA. Hurricane Ian, currently south of Cuba, is expected to move up to Florida later this week via the Gulf of Mexico.
No new date given
But there will now be no time to get the rocket out before the end of the current firing period, which runs until October 4. NASA has given no indication of a future launch date.
The next possible firing period is from October 17 to 31, with one take-off possibility per day (except October 24 to 26 and 28). The next is from November 12 to 27 (except 20, 21 and 26). After already two take-off attempts canceled at the last moment a few weeks ago, in particular because of a fuel leak during the filling of the rocket’s tanks, this new setback is very unwelcome for NASA.
Fifty years after the last mission of the Apollo program, Artémis 1 must be used to verify that the Orion capsule, at the top of the rocket, is safe to transport a crew to the Moon in the future.