Nasa’s historic uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to moon threatened by Caribbean storm
- A yet-to-be-named storm is threatening to delay the US space agency’s third attempt to launch the rocket on September 27
- A successful Artemis 1 mission will come as a huge relief to Nasa, after years of delays and cost overruns
Nasa’s historic uncrewed mission to the moon is facing fresh difficulties.
After technical problems derailed two launch attempts several weeks ago, a new lift-off of the Artemis 1 mission scheduled for Tuesday is now threatened by a storm gathering in the Caribbean.
The storm, which has not yet been assigned a name, is currently located south of the Dominican Republic.
But it is expected to grow into a hurricane in the coming days and could move north to Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Centre, from which the rocket is set to launch.
“Our plan A is to stay to course and to get the launch off on September 27,” Mike Bolger, Nasa’s exploration ground systems manager, told reporters on Friday. “But we realised we also need to be really paying attention and thinking about a plan B.”
That would entail wheeling the giant Space Launch System rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, known as VAB.
“If we were to go down to plan B we need a couple days to pivot from our current tanking test or launch configuration to execute rollback and get back into the protection of the VAB,” Bolger said, adding that a decision should be made by early afternoon on Saturday.
