With Hurricane Ian threatening the Florida peninsula, NASA has opted to move its 321-foot-tall Space Launch System to the Vehicle Assembly Building the place the Artemis rocket and Orion spacecraft will likely be secure from doubtlessly damaging winds.

On Saturday, NASA scrapped its plans to carry out the third launch try of its SLS rocket attributable to a tropical storm brewing within the Caribbean. Today, the area company announced that it could transport the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft again to the VAB for shelter in case the storm reaches Kennedy Space Center. The 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) journey again to the constructing is slated to start at 11 p.m. ET.

Current projections recommend Kennedy Space Center will likely be spared from the worst of Hurricane Ian’s winds, however as these are simply predictions, NASA will not be taking any probabilities. SLS and Orion value $50 billion to develop and every launch prices $4 billion, so transferring these property from hurt’s means is the smart factor to do. We’ve waited this lengthy for launch, so why not wait a little bit longer.

When NASA cancelled the launch try on Saturday, the area company was undecided about whether or not or not it ought to roll SLS to the VAB. Thankfully, NASA has made the smart choice to move the rocket again into its big storage because the storm intensifies on its strategy to Florida. The tropical system is now formally a hurricane and is anticipated to hit Florida as early as Tuesday, with hurricane circumstances doubtlessly affecting the state on Wednesday, CNN reports. 

SLS first made its strategy to Launch Pad 39B on August 16 to organize for its very first launch try scheduled for later that month. Unfortunately, that launch try didn’t precisely go as deliberate as a defective sensor gave inaccurate engine temperature readings. The rocket’s second try and launch earlier this month was additionally scrubbed, however this time on account of a hydrogen leak, prompting NASA to pick September 27 as the following potential date to ship the SLS rocket flying.

Things appeared to be wanting up for NASA, particularly after the area company was granted the waiver by the U.S. Space Force to proceed with the launch. It appears nature has different plans for the megarocket.

It will take NASA about two days to roll its rocket again to the VAB, so the area company is basically chopping it brief on time wanted to offer shelter for the heavy-lift launch system—and to maintain its staff secure.

“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 wrote in a weblog publish on Saturday.

Hmm. With rollback beginning at 11 p.m. ET tonight, and provided that it takes two days to ship the rocket to the VAB, that basically doesn’t afford the workers a heck of numerous time do deal with private security issues.

With the SLS (hopefully) making it again to the VAB because the storm approaches, NASA may goal for a 3rd launch try on October 2 to lastly provoke the company’s return to the Moon. Artemis 1 is the inaugural flight of NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks to land astronauts again on the Moon no sooner than 2025. The Artemis 1 mission is an uncrewed check flight to the Moon and again, and the primary built-in flight of SLS and the Orion capsule.

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