NASA has only a 20 percent chance of launching its Artemis I moon rocket on Tuesday because of an approaching storm that could turn into a hurricane on Wednesday.
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will launch Tuesday, with the 70-minute launch window at 11:37 a.m. ET.
The National Hurricane Center predicts the potential hurricane will move over western Cuba early Tuesday, with a tropical storm hitting Florida by mid-day.
Managers said Friday the rocket is ready to launch Tuesday on its first test flight without astronauts, after overcoming more hydrogen leaks during a tank test earlier this week.
NASA said it will continue to monitor the forecast and decide by Saturday whether it will not only delay the launch but drag the rocket off the pad and back to the hangar.
Officials said it’s unclear when the next launch attempt will be — be it October or even November — if the missile has to take shelter indoors.
A tropical storm could ground NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft due to launch Tuesday
It takes three days of preparation to get the rocket back to the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, four miles away.
“I don’t think we’re getting close,” said Tom Whitmeyer of NASA, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems. “We’re taking it step by step.”
Fuel leaks and other technical problems made the first two launch attempts of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft obsolete, which will be dislodged when it finally takes off.
NASA conducted tests on the rocket on Wednesday, which caused more fuel leaks, but engineers managed to bring the problems down to acceptable levels.
Engineers turned off the power and heated the pipes in hopes of plugging the leak, and then proceeded with the test.
But the leak persisted before falling to acceptable levels. Hours later, another leak surfaced elsewhere, before it subsided.
However, the team said all objectives had been achieved.
This would be the third attempt to launch the rocket. On September 3, the mission was scrubbed due to a leak. NASA said it has conducted testing and the rocket is ready for launch
Hydrogen leaks ruin the first two launch attempts, as well as previous countdown tests.
So much hydrogen escaped during the countdown earlier this month that it exceeded NASA’s limit by more than double.
Wednesday’s leak almost got that big again.
After hours of fits and starts, NASA finally managed to load nearly a million gallons of fuel into the rocket.
After the September 3 launch delay, NASA replaced two seals in the leaking pipe.
One seal had a small dent; it measured only a hundredth of an inch.
‘That doesn’t seem like much, but we are again dealing with hydrogen,’ the smallest element of the periodic table, says mission leader Mike Sarafin.
NASA also changed the refueling process, slowly easing in charging the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
After Wednesday’s big leak appeared, the launch team moved even more slowly to put even less strain on the plumbing.
The Artemis I mission will test the technology before astronauts board the craft. Pictured is the path that both the unmanned and manned missions will travel
Separately, NASA still needs the US Space Force to extend the certification of onboard batteries that are part of the flight safety system for another launch attempt.
Once launched, the crew pod atop the rocket will be the first to orbit the moon in 50 years.
The $4.1 billion mission should last more than five weeks and end with a landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Astronauts would climb aboard for the second test flight, around the moon in 2024.
The third mission, set for 2025, would see a pair of astronauts actually land on the moon.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The engines and boosters are carryovers from the now retired space shuttles.
As now, NASA struggled with elusive hydrogen leaks during the shuttle era, especially during the early 1990s.
NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the moon in 2025 as part of the Artemis mission
Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the moon in Greek mythology.
NASA has chosen her to personify the path back to the moon, which will see astronauts return to the lunar surface by 2025 — including the first woman and the next man.
Artemis 1, formerly Exploration Mission-1, is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars.
Artemis 1 will be the first integrated flight test of NASA’s deep space exploration system: the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Artemis 1 will be an unmanned flight that will provide a foundation for human exploration of deep space and demonstrate our commitment and capacity to extend human existence to the moon and beyond.
During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown.
It will travel 280,000 miles (450,600 km) from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the moon over the course of a mission of about three weeks.
Artemis 1, formerly Exploration Mission-1, is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars. This image explains the different stages of the mission
Orion will stay in space longer than any other astronaut ship has done without docking in a space station and returning home faster and hotter than ever before.
With this first exploration mission, NASA is leading the next steps of human exploration into deep space, where astronauts will build and test the near-moon systems needed for lunar surface missions and exploration to other destinations further from Earth, including Mars.
They take the crew on a different trajectory and test Orion’s critical systems with people on board.
Together, Orion, SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy will be able to meet the most challenging needs of crew and cargo missions in deep space.
Ultimately, NASA aims to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by 2028 as a result of the Artemis mission.
The space agency hopes this colony will discover new scientific discoveries, demonstrate new technological advances and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy.