NASA’s Artemis I rocket could face damaging winds as storm approaches

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The Artemis I mission, which is expected to send an uncrewed spacecraft on a test mission around the moon, is delayed yet again, as NASA’s Space Launch System faces Tropical Storm Nicole, which is now expected to strengthen into a hurricane before it slams into Florida’s East Coast.

The space agency had been targeting November 14 for the third launch attempt but is now looking at November 16, “pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” NASA said in a statement Tuesday evening. November 16 would offer a two-hour launch window that opens at 1:04 a.m. ET.

The rocket, often referred to as SLS, is sitting on its launchpad at Kennedy Space Center, which lies just to the north of where the storm’s center is expected to make landfall, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller noted. That will mean the area can expect some of the strongest winds the system will bring.

If it is a 75-mile-per-hour (120-kph) Category 1 hurricane, as it’s predicted to be, gusts could range between 80 and 90 miles per hour (130 to 145 kph), according to Miller. That could mean the rocket will get battered by winds higher than the predetermined limits of what the rocket can withstand. Officials have said that SLS is designed to withstand gusts of up to 85 miles per hour (137 kph).

“Further, the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Florida, has forecasted max wind gusts occurring early Thursday morning of 86 miles per hour,” Miller added. “So yes, this is absolutely possible that wind gusts exceed that threshold.”

The National Hurricane Center’s latest report also gives a 15% chance that Cocoa Beach, which lies about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the launch site, will endure sustained hurricane-force winds.

Officials at NASA, however, said in a statement “forecasts predict the greatest risks at the pad are high winds that are not expected to exceed the SLS design.”

“The rocket is designed to withstand heavy rains at the launch pad and the spacecraft hatches have been secured to prevent water intrusion,” the statement continues.

Read more: The numbers that make the Artemis I mission a monumental feat

The space agency decided to roll the SLS rocket out to its launchpad last week, as the storm was still an unnamed system brewing off the East Coast. At the time, officials had been expecting this storm to bring in sustained winds of around 25 knots (29 miles per hour) with gusts of up to 40 knots (46 miles per hour), which was deemed to be well within the predetermined limits of what the rocket can withstand, according to comments from Mark Burger, a launch weather officer with the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, at a NASA news conference on November 3.

“The National Hurricane Center just has a 30% chance of it…