NASA will no longer launch the Artemis 1 mission on September 27. The rocket has been stationed at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B since last month and has experienced delays since arriving at the site. Now, NASA officials are forced to return the entire rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building due to Tropical Storm Ian, which is expected to make landfall later this week as a hurricane.
Since officials don’t want to launch the rocket onto the launch pad when the storm makes landfall, Team Artemis 1 will begin returning the rocket to the VAB late Monday night. In general, the trip from the launch pad to its place of detention will take from eight to 10 hours. Officials have not yet announced a launch date for a new target.
“The decision allows staff time to meet the needs of their families and protect the integrated missile and spacecraft system,” the agency wrote in a blog post Monday. “The time of the first movement also depends on the best expected conditions for the retreat to meet the weather parameters of the movement.”
The mission consists of the SLS and the Orion space capsule, which will be uncrewed for this mission. Once out of Earth’s atmosphere, the Orion capsule and SLS are set to separate, sending the first on a 42-day test flight around the moon. Next, Artemis II will show a crew on a similar flight path. Artemis III, currently scheduled for launch in 2025, will return America to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.
“We’re not going to launch until we think it’s right,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told members of the media after a delay earlier this month. “These teams have worked on it and that’s the conclusion they came up with. I look at this as part of our space program, where safety is at the top of the list.”
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