<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">It will be ''difficult'' for NASA to make a new attempt to launch its masssive Moon rocket in October, an official from the US space agency said Tuesday, with a lift-off in November looking more likely.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The SLS rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA, had to be returned overnight to its storage hangar in order to shelter it from the approach of Hurricane Ian.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next possible launch windows -- determined according to the positions of the Earth and the Moon -- are from October 17 to 31, then from November 12 to 27.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We know that the earliest it could go is late October, but more than likely we'll go in the window in the middle of November," NASA administrator Bill Nelson told CNN.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At a press conference, NASA associate administrator Jim Free was also asked about the rocket's chances of attempting a lift-off in October.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I don't think we're going to take anything off the table," he said. "But it is going to be difficult."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the hurricane has passed by, NASA will have to take the time to change the batteries of the rocket's self-destruct system, a complex operation that will be carried out in the storage hangar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Raising the 98-meter-high (320 foot) rocket and transporting it to its launch pad, before configuring it for takeoff, will also take days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest setback will therefore significantly postpone the launch of the long-awaited Artemis 1 mission.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two launch attempts had already been aborted at the last minute, at the end of August and then at the beginning of September, due to technical problems, including a leak when filling the rocket's tanks with fuel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fifty years after the last mission of the Apollo program, Artemis 1 will be used to ensure that the Orion capsule, at the top of the rocket, is safe to transport a crew to the Moon in the future. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>