Tropical Storm heads towards Space Launch System Launch System

A tropical storm off the coast of South America creeps towards Florida and the launch site for the Space Launch System rocket, according to Bloomberg's Artemis I mission to the moon next week.

The US space agency said it would decide on Sunday whether to roll the rocket and spacecraft back from the launch pad to its primary hangar, the Vehicle Assembly Building.

During a meeting Saturday morning, teams decided to prepare for the Tuesday launch date to allow them to configure systems for rolling back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building, NASA said in a blog post Saturday.

The decision to delay was made after NASA completed a key fueling test on Sept. 21 of its Space Launch System rocket, a massive vehicle that will send an uncrewed capsule around the moon. The fueling test was intended to determine if NASA had fixed a leak that stymied an attempt to launch the rocket on Sept. 3.

Two hydrogen leaks emerged during the test, as engineers fueled the SLS rocket, as well as other technical issues. One leak eventually went away after some troubleshooting, the second leak that cropped up later in the test would have prevented a launch if NASA had hoped to fly that day.

Despite the difficulties, NASA was able to fully fuel the rocket, and the agency claimed that the mission team had met all of the objectives for the test.

John Blevins, the chief engineer for the SLS rocket at NASA, said during a press conference on Friday that it was a very successful day. I think all the secondary objectives were met, not just the primary objectives. NASA had been hoping that a launch attempt would be possible on Sept. 27 despite forecasts showing the newly formed Tropical Depression Nine heading toward Florida. The depression grew into a tropical storm late Friday.

It is not even a named storm, said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA's deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development, during the press conference. It is the Tropical Depression Number Nine. The SLS rocket is designed to handle wind gusts as strong as 74 knots at the launchpad. It takes about three days for NASA to get the SLS back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.

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