NASA announced on Tuesday that it has again delayed sending an uncrewed mission to the Moon, this time due to Tropical Storm Nicole, which is heading towards Florida’s east coast.
The launch attempt, originally scheduled for November 14, is now scheduled for November 16, U.S. space agency senior official Jim Free said on Twitter.
NASA has already aborted two launch attempts for its Artemis 1 mission in late August and September.
“The Artemis 1 release date adjustment prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to meet the needs of their families and homes,” wrote Freeh, NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development.
The storm, currently over the Atlantic Ocean, is forecast to turn into a hurricane on Wednesday near the Bahamas before reaching Florida later in the afternoon or early Thursday morning, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Along the coast, where the Kennedy Space Center is located, where the rocket will go, a hurricane watch has already been issued.
As Nicole strengthens, NASA “decided to reschedule the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to Wednesday, November 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as post-storm checks,” the agency said in a statement. Tuesday.
The launch window opens at 01:04 local time (03:04 GMT) on November 16, with a second security date set for November 19.
On Monday, NASA announced that, based on available forecasts, it had decided to leave the rocket on the launch pad, where it was placed just a few days ago.
The 98-meter-tall SLS rocket was due to be returned in late September to an assembly plant a few kilometers away to protect against Hurricane Yang.
The rocket, which never took off and whose launch was canceled at the last moment twice in recent months due to technical problems, is estimated at several billion dollars.
The uncrewed Artemis 1 test mission will be the first flight of the United States flagship program back to the moon.
In the next stages, the Artemis program aims to send the first woman and the first black person to the moon, but not before 2025.
NASA also wants to establish a permanent human presence there, which would include building a space station in orbit around the Moon. For the space agency, this is a necessary step in planning the first manned mission to Mars.
