Artemis moon mission likely delayed to November as NASA moves rocket out of hurricane's path

NASA's long-awaited instrumentality to the satellite is delayed a small longer.

With Hurricane Ian bearing down connected Florida this week, the abstraction bureau rolled the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket — acceptable to motorboat the Artemis I ngo — backmost into the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building for extortion astatine Kennedy Space Center.

The towering rocket, with the Orion capsule stacked connected apical of it, has been retired connected the launchpad since mid-August, earlier aggregate method problems forced NASA had to telephone disconnected motorboat attempts implicit the past month.

NASA present sees November arsenic the astir apt accidental for the adjacent Artemis I motorboat attempt. In a property briefing connected Tuesday, NASA subordinate head Jim Free said the bureau expects to behaviour enactment connected the rocket portion it's successful the VAB, replacing components that are "limited beingness items."

"It's conscionable a situation to think: 'Can we get successful there, [complete the work], and get backmost retired determination for different motorboat attempt,'" Free said. "We don't privation to spell retired excessively accelerated and past we're stuck successful a concern wherever possibly we didn't get to each the constricted beingness items we privation to."

For the rocket and capsule, "limited life" describes items which request to beryllium refreshed oregon checked periodically, specified arsenic batteries oregon propellant tanks.

The Artemis I ngo would people the debut of the SLS and Orion capsule, for what would beryllium a much than month-long travel astir the moon. It kicks disconnected NASA's long-awaited instrumentality to the moon's surface arsenic the archetypal ngo successful NASA's Artemis lunar program. Tentatively, the program is to onshore the agency's astronauts connected the satellite by its 3rd Artemis ngo successful 2025.

Notably, this archetypal ngo is 5 years down docket and billions implicit budget. More than $40 cardinal has already been spent connected the Artemis program, overmuch of that toward SLS and Orion development. The strategy comes with a per-launch terms tag of $4.1 billion.