Trevor Mallman
NASA announced Friday that the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft appear to have survived their encounter with Hurricane Nicole this week without significant damage.
“Right now there’s nothing stopping us from getting to the 16th,” said Jim Free, the engineer who leads exploration systems development for NASA. To that end, the space agency is working toward a 1:04 a.m. launch. ET (06:04 UTC) on Wednesday, from the Kennedy Space Center. This Artemis I mission will send an unpaid Orion spacecraft around the Moon in preparation for human missions later this decade.
Free said Nicole produced significant winds over the spacecraft in Florida. However, he did not provide exact numbers, nor exact design specifications that the Space Launch System rocket is designed to withstand. However, Free said at no point was the rocket exposed to wind gusts above its design limits. This appears to be controlled, based on publicly available data. For example, the National Weather Service reported a maximum wind gust of 93 mph at an altitude of 200 feet on the rocket’s launch pad, which is close to but not above the rocket’s 97 mph limit at that height (see the full SLS design specifications for the weather).
A preliminary inspection of the missile Thursday night and Friday night after the storm passed revealed only a few very minor issues, most of which had already been addressed by Friday afternoon, when Free spoke to reporters on a conference call . “We’re designing it to be out there,” Free said of the rocket, noting the Kennedy Space Center’s exposure to hurricanes on Florida’s Atlantic coast. .”
Even so, NASA didn’t leave its rocket exposed to Nicole’s wrath Thursday by choice. The rocket’s engineering teams engaged in hours-long meetings last Sunday as it became clear that Nicole posed a serious threat. If the decision had been made to roll the Artemis I stack back into the protective vehicle assembly building at that time, the operation would not have been completed until Wednesday.
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By then, it was too late to turn back safely, as the vehicle was in danger of being caught during the delicate maneuver when Nicole’s winds picked up before it made landfall in Florida.
“From our perspective, we stayed within certification with the winds we saw during the hurricane,” Free said. “I think it’s safe to say, for all of us, we obviously wouldn’t want to be out there. The best place for the vehicle in things like this is the VAB. But we couldn’t get back to the VAB and so we stayed where we were and the predictions us and our certification limits protected us from the storm.”
While NASA inspected the exterior of the rocket, it seems unlikely to investigate the structural integrity of the vehicle’s interior, such as fasteners and other materials prone to wear and fatigue. Free said NASA engineers are confident that the wind loads on the rocket did not exceed their design specifications, which were verified as part of the vibration test, or test modes, conducted on the vehicle about a year ago.
The weather forecast for a launch attempt on the morning of November 16 in Florida is positive. Winds are expected to be light, with partly to mostly clear skies. If there are technical issues that preclude the launch — this will be Artemis I’s third launch attempt in the past three months — NASA has another chance on Saturday, Nov. 19. The organization has one last chance to launch this month on November 25, the day after Thanksgiving in the US.
