NASA managers Monday reviewed the threat posed by hurricane-damaged insulation on the Artemis moon rocket and cleared the $4.1 billion booster for launch "as is" early Wednesday. The launch would kick off a long-delayed flight to boost an unpiloted Orion crew capsule around the moon and back.
Even if more strips of the caulk-like "RTV" insulation pull free during the Space Launch System rocket's climb to space, an engineering analysis showed the material is not massive or dense enough to cause any significant damage even if a piece hits one of the two lower stages or strap-on boosters, engineers concluded.
The 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, is the linchpin of the agency's Artemis moon program, capable of boosting Orion moonships and other components directly into lunar orbit for rendezvous with a planned space station and lunar lander.
After coming up with a "kinder, gentler" technique for fueling the rocket to minimize any leakage, engineers rolled the SLS back out to the pad on November 3 to prepare for another launch try, despite predicted development of a sub-tropical storm in the Caribbean.
That storm eventually intensified and became Hurricane Nicole, but by that time is was too late to haul the rocket back to the protection of its assembly building. Instead, it rode out hurricane-force winds and rain at the pad, exposed to the elements.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the SLS rocket and launch pad suffered no major damage. But engineers discovered a 10-foot section of RTV insulation covering an indentation between the Orion crew capsule and the base of its protective nose cone had delaminated and pulled away in smaller pieces in the high winds.
Keeping lessons learned from Columbia in mind, engineers carried out a rigorous analysis and concluded the SLS insulation was not a credible threat. With forecasters predicting a 90 percent chance of good weather, launch may well come down to whether earlier problems fueling the giant rocket have, in fact, been resolved.
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