NASA says its SLS rocket is good to go for a launch attempt next Wednesday - Ars Technica

Savage Launch System —

"If we didn’t plan it to beryllium retired determination successful harsh upwind we picked the incorrect motorboat spot."

Eric Berger - Nov 11, 2022 10:28 p.m. UTC

Enlarge / NASA's Space Launch System rocket astatine LC-39B connected September 1, 2022.

Trevor Mahlmann

NASA said connected Friday that its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft look to person survived their brushwood with Hurricane Nicole this week without incurring immoderate important damage.

"Right present there’s thing preventing america from getting to the 16th," said Jim Free, the technologist who leads the improvement of exploration systems for NASA. To that end, the abstraction bureau is moving toward a motorboat astatine 1:04 americium ET (06:04 UTC) connected Wednesday, from Kennedy Space Center. This Artemis I ngo volition nonstop an uncrewed Orion spacecraft astir the Moon successful mentation for quality missions aboriginal this decade.

Free said Nicole produced important winds implicit the spaceport successful Florida. However, helium did not supply precise numbers, nor nonstop plan specifications that the Space Launch System rocket is designed to withstand. However, Free said that astatine nary constituent was the rocket exposed to upwind gusts supra its plan limits. This appears to cheque out, based connected publically disposable data. For example, the National Weather Service reported a maximum upwind gust of 93 mph astatine an altitude of 200 feet astatine the rocket's motorboat pad, which is adjacent to, but not above, the rocket's bounds of 97 mph astatine that tallness (see full SLS plan specifications for weather).

A preliminary inspection of the rocket connected Thursday nighttime and Friday nighttime aft the tempest had passed revealed lone immoderate precise insignificant issues, astir of which had already been addressed by Friday day erstwhile Free spoke to reporters during a teleconference. “We plan it to beryllium retired there," Free said of the rocket, noting Kennedy Space Center's vulnerability to hurricanes connected Florida's Atlantic coast. "If we didn’t plan it to beryllium retired determination successful harsh weather, we picked the incorrect motorboat spot."

Even so, NASA did not permission its rocket exposed to Nicole's fury connected Thursday by choice. The rocket's engineering teams engaged successful agelong meetings past Sunday, arsenic it was becoming wide that Nicole posed a superior threat. If they had made the determination to rotation the Artemis I stack backmost wrong the protective Vehicle Assembly Building astatine that time, the cognition would not person been implicit until Wednesday.

By then, it was excessively precocious to rotation backmost safely, arsenic the conveyance risked being caught during the delicate moving cognition erstwhile Nicole's winds were rising up of its landfall successful Florida.

"From our perspective, we stayed wrong the certification with the winds that we saw during the hurricane," Free said. "I deliberation it's harmless to say, for each of us, we evidently would not person wanted to enactment retired there. The champion spot for the conveyance successful those kinds of things is the VAB. But we could not marque it backmost to the VAB and beryllium safe. So we stayed wherever we were, and our predictions and our certification limits protected america from the storm."

While NASA inspected the rocket's exterior, it appears improbable they volition probe the structural integrity of the interior of the vehicle, specified arsenic fasteners and different materials prone to deterioration and fatigue. Free said NASA's engineers person assurance due to the fact that the upwind loads connected the rocket did not transcend their plan specifications, which were verified arsenic portion of vibration, oregon modal testing, conducted connected the conveyance astir a twelvemonth ago.

The aboriginal upwind forecast for a motorboat effort connected the greeting of November 16 successful Florida is positive. Winds are forecast to beryllium light, with partially to mostly wide skies. If determination are method issues that preclude the launch—this volition beryllium the 3rd effort to motorboat Artemis I successful the past 3 months—NASA has different accidental connected Saturday, November 19. The bureau has a last accidental to motorboat this period connected November 25, the time aft the Thanksgiving vacation successful the US.