NASA Cancel Artemis I Launch Attempt on Sept. 27 Due to Approaching Tropical Storm
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA is foregoing a launch opportunity Tuesday, Sept. 27, and preparing for rollback, while continuing to watch the weather forecast associated with Tropical Storm Ian. During a meeting Saturday morning, teams decided to stand down on preparing for the Tuesday launch date to allow them to configure systems for rolling back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers deferred a final decision about the roll to Sunday, Sept. 25, to allow for additional data gathering and analysis. If Artemis I managers elect to roll back, it would begin late Sunday night or early Monday morning.
The agency is taking a step-wise approach to its decision making process to allow the agency to protect its employees by completing a safe roll in time for them to address the needs of their families while also protecting for the option to press ahead with another launch opportunity in the current window if weather predictions improve. NASA continues to rely on the most up to date information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Space Force, and the National Hurricane Center.
52 responses to “NASA Cancel Artemis I Launch Attempt on Sept. 27 Due to Approaching Tropical Storm”
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Well, at least they can change the FTS batteries.
Note that the storm is not likely to impact the Cape area before the purported launch time. If this were a reliable system very likely to fly without problems, then they could launch before the storm hit.
If it was a Falcon on the pad for Tuesday launch, it would stay and launch. Even if there were abort problems it wouldn’t take days to get a Falcon to safety.
Tuesday afternoon and good weather.
Looks like the path has shifted to a direct course to Orlando. Prayers for safety!?
Thanks. Looks like my house is cone center again. Should see cat1 winds tonight. We’ll see how my predictions hold out for my location and the cape.
Thursday morning it passed me as a cat1. Closest approach was about 30 miles se of my house to storm center. We have a tornado rated storm-n-storage building that we slept in last night just in case.
It’s down to tropical storm as it approaches the cape.
And hopefully the batteries in the Cubesats as well.
They better at this point!
It almost seems like the SLS/Orion has a curse on it. After all that work a hurricane now delays the launch, probably for weeks…
Don’t forget the MAF tornado either:
https://www.nasaspaceflight…
Yes, and the lightening strike…
If you can call an apocalyptic level of corruption from day 1 one of the program a “curse.” The people who forced this rocket on NASA never intended it to fly, never allowed it to be designed to fly, and excuses to not fly it will never stop coming.
If NASA ever gets tired of being a patsy and tries to fly it anyway, it’ll probably blow up and they’ll be blamed for it. Big circus in the Senate with hearings where the perpetrators of SLS give pompous speeches about safety while commanding NASA to give Boeing more money.
The projected path has since shifted northward. The cape is still in the cone, but just barely.
I watch these storms. My house was in the center of the projected path yesterday with the cape about 60 miles further on also in the center of projection. This morning I am on the extreme east of the projection with the cape also on the extreme east 60 miles on.
The storm would have to cross the state to reach the cape and loses strength over land. By the time it could reach me it would be a Cat1 at most, and a tropical storm by the time it reaches the cape. Worst case now is that the cape gets a lot of rain and winds to 40-50 miles an hour.
I wonder if they are going to leave it on the pad and try for launch on Sunday, Oct. 2 when the wavier on the FTS runs out.
I am glad that I am not in the responsibility chain for this situation. I see no solutions that I call good.
Actually the Hurricane gives them the perfect excuse to take it into the VAB, do the work that should be done and prepare for a new attempt in a few weeks. After 5 years of delays a few more weeks should be no big deal.
Yeah, it’s not like they’re in a race with some other rocket or something.
Do you think that the nearly completed tower for the Starship at the Cape spooked them? SpaceX still needs to build a backup crew launch tower at Pad 40 before NASA allows them to test Starship on the pad that is NASA’s only option for crew flights to the ISS.
Of course the adding of a crew tower to Pad 40 would also give SpaceX the option of simultaneously supporting two crew flights.
SpaceX wont fly starship till next year
Don’t know why my replies are being marked as Spam. I wish Doug would fix it.
As I posted before that is irrelevant, as it is the visual of seeing the Starship tower, and knowing there will soon be a rocket on it to check out the tower, that they fear.
The average person, and reporter, doesn’t pay much attention to Boca Chica, but the Cape is another matter.
I honestly dont think that they care. I know a lot of people in this program (SLS) and few of them care about STarship or any sort of competition with it…they do not even see themselves in competition. Most of them have figured out what I am pretty sure I have. Starship is not going to be the breakthrough Musk has been claiming now…at least in its first several variations and probably for at least 10 years. it may be in the long run and then it may not. Falcon has not been revolutionary…
anyway see what happens
I remember a decade ago I was told by aerospace greybeards that it was impossible to design a rocket that was both cost effective enough to be commercially viable in the private sector and reliable enough to be human rated. The engineering changes required to make a rocket human rated meant the cost would increase to the point that it would not be cost effective against similar launch system that were not human rated. The Falcon-9 has destroyed that claim on the way to becoming the most reliable Launch vehicle ever produced by the US aerospace industry while being extremely competitive in securing private commercial launch contracts for the US aerospace industry. The engineers and tradesmen who designed, developed and then built the Falcon-9 and the Merlin Engine should be extremely proud of what they accomplished for the US space industry.
It’s not even a race now. More like a game of chess where a mistake can cost the game. But only as long as the other player can take advantage of it.
That’s for the first launch. The scoreboard for the next few years is more likely to read like the YTD of Delta4 vs Falcon9.
the only good and prudent solution is a roll back. go back charge the batteries fix the rocket come out and fly.
A day later my reaction is similar. The projection has wandered a bit with my house and the cape within the eastern cone by a bit more than yesterday. I am expecting tropical to cat1 winds by Wednesday morning with lots of rain starting tomorrow night. I would still put worst case for the cape at tropical storm winds and lots of rain.
Keep in mind the “cone” is not a path of where the storm is most likely to be the most damaging. The storm itself can be much wider than thr cone. The cone is an area within which which the eye of the storm will likely remain as the storm moves. Its width is based on uncertainty of the storm’s predictions. For Atlantic hurricanes the strongest parts of the storm are typically northeast of the eye.
Meteorologists are predicting the the storm will be about 440 miles wide by the time it gets as far north as Jacksonville.
Yes, current predictions are for Brevard county to see 20-35mph winds with gusts as high as 50mph. Unless the heavy parts of the storm swing this way to get worse, impact will be that some half-rotted wood fences and a few tree branches here and there will blow down.
I deleted a comment above before seeing yours. I expect to see cat1 or less winds at my house a few hours before the cape sees what you describe.
Current forecast at cape Canaveral says 35 out of the south for the better part of a day. On the ocean you can count on 20+ in gusts over that.
Crap!
Wimps! If they were real men ……
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
now we would have people in those horrible SpaceForce uniforms singing that horrible song
Marooned is just a wonderful movie superb acting all the way around (and three hot women) dont forget the hot women
Ahhh the Space Force. History will have its way with it yet. Still infantile.
But yes, Marooned was an awesome projection of 1960’s US space manifest destiny projected into the 70’s ….. Perhaps if Vietnam didn’t go so horribly off kilter.
If Vietnam didnt happen (because if it did it would have gone horribly wrong such is how these things dont work) than the entire shape of US culture is probably different. I say that because the race and gender issue were still going to bite us. the problem is that in human spaceflight the cost are enormous and no one has found anything that returns value for the dollar spent. its all ephemeral.
until that changes…doomed.
settling in well here in Seattle looking for homes 🙂 hope you are well
Space had real use in the Cold War. For now, it’s like military posturing to keep the peace. It’s worth is measured by what does not happen. As such, yes it’s ephemeral and subject to speculation and opinion. But really, in the end what was more historically relevant, the Apollo Project, or the air campaign in SE Asia?
the fight in SE Asia. at somepoint in the future some nation (and it could be us) will land on the Moon and like the Europeans coming to the new world…stay. and find something to do there that changes society. the lunar effort of the 60’s will be the stuff of Vikings. did not really change the course of history sadly
I’ll argue the opposite. Apollo built an American space culture that carried the weight of keeping space exploration as vibrant as it was for three generations. I’d argue the path of the Cold War was largely unaffected by events in Vietnam and SE Asia. The USSR was likely to die in the 90’s no matter what.
I will think of that tonight and have a clearer response either in the morning or latter. my theory of life is that most of the foreign adventures we have done have been massive waste…including taking down Ivan because we are going to have to do it again. having said that. this might be the “soft power” version of WW1 and 2 where we took down germany twice. I dont think that the lunar landings did much 🙂
Most wars of aggression are strategically flawed even fictional. However the defender has their strategic rationale handed to them on a plate.
Russia’s fictional world view is in this drivers seat of this crisis. In the end our strategic goal is the same as it was before. Containment, but keep Ukraine’s freedom this time around.
we went nuts in the 60’s and 02 over the “evil doers” and paid for it
I think tthat the Apollo landings will mean little to history except a footnote
I think we went unconsciously nuts in the 60’s, and consciously nuts in the 00’s. We willingly went crazy after 9/11.
The folks in charge in the 1960’s had fought WWII and remembered the lost opportunities in the 1930’s to stop Germany, Japan and Italy while they were still relatively weak. That is why they were so quick to respond to Russia in various places like Vietnam and Korea, especially after they sent the wrong signals after WWII by missing the opportunities to do so in China and Eastern Europe.
I think that’s just what we’re doing in Ukraine right now, and doing a pretty darn good real world job of it. That said, most of the hard part of the fine job is being done by Ukraine. I think the polar extremes of trying to act in concert with the Afghans and Iraqi’s vs working with the Ukrainians should act as a coordinate system the next time we need to select a group of people to ally with and work together with. The results could not be more extreme in results on the ground.
The mistake in Iraq and Afghanistan was trying to bring democracy to societies conditioned by their culture to authoritarian rule and tribal loyalty. We should have return the king to power in Afghanistan and set up something similar in Iraq, strong individuals the masses would respect and follow, and then gradually introduced more democratic institutions over a generation or two.
That is what worked in Saudi Arabia and also in Japan where the Emperor was left as a symbol of power to the public, stabilizing society.
It’s also obvious the people we chose were the wrong kind of people. I think the record shows that every government the CIA founds fails. There’s some structural reforms to be done here at home. Perhaps the CIA can be used to destroy governments, and use the State Dept to make them.
both times it was costly to our future
History writes about Columbus while the war with the Moors is just a footnote.
Exactly my point. Thank you. But I guarantee you what Spain celebrated for a hundred years or more was the victory over the Moors. Just so with 1960’s NASA vs SE Asian military adventures. In 38 years everyone alive then will think NASA when they consider the decade 100 years previous.
OK, they finally decided. They will roll it into the VAB. Looks like it will be a few weeks before the next flight attempt.
They’re at it again. David Vincent Knows.
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