Possible hurricane poses threat to NASA's Artemis moon launch plans

NASA is pressing ahead toward another attempt to launch the Artemis 1 moon rocket on its leak-delayed maiden flight Tuesday while closely monitoring the track of a potential hurricane that could bring high winds and heavy rain to the Florida Space Coast, officials said Friday.

In the meantime, the Space Force Eastern Range, which oversees all military and civilian launches from Florida, granted a request from NASA to waive a time-consuming inspection of the rocket's self-destruct batteries that would have required a roll back to the agency's Vehicle Assembly Building.

With the waiver in hand, and with engineers saying a fueling test Wednesday showed leaks in the rocket's hydrogen feedline system are manageable, weather is the major constraint to getting the long-delayed Artemis 1 mission off the ground.