WASHINGTON: Nasa has called off the scheduled Tuesday launch of its historic unscrewed mission to the Moon due to a tropical storm that is forecast to strengthen as it approaches Florida.
"Nasa is forgoing a launch opportunity... and preparing for rollback (from the launchpad), while continuing to watch the weather forecast associated with Tropical Storm Ian," it said on Saturday.
After technical problems derailed two launch attempts several weeks ago, a new liftoff of the Artemis 1 mission was scheduled for Tuesday and was 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 Center, from which the rocket is set to launch.
Earlier reports said: "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.
On the launch pad the orange and white SLS rocket can withstand wind gusts of up to 137 kilometres per hour. But if it has to be sheltered, the current launch window, which runs until October 4, will be missed.
The next launch window will run from October 17 to 31, with one possibility of take-off per day, except from October 24-26 and 28. - AFP
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