NASA’s launch pad suffered significant damage during the Artemis liftoff

“The elevator doors were blown right off…”

Damages

NASA’s Artemis 1 rocket pad appears to have suffered far more damage than expected when it finally lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center last week.

Like Reuters space reporter Joey Roulette tweetedan agency source said the damage to the launch pad “exceeded mission management’s expectations” and, according to his description, sounded quite serious.

“The elevator doors were blown right off, various pipes were broken, some large sheets of metal were left lying around,” Reuters remarked a reporter in response to SpaceNewsJeff Faust, who on A NASA statement summarized Friday admitting that the elevators on the launch pad were not working because a “pressure wave” had blown out the blast doors.

Trickle Down

Artemis 1’s launch was preceded by years of drama, ranging from the long-delayed development of the Space Launch System that launched it into space, to the craft sustains hurricane damage just before the start.

Shortly after the start, NASA acknowledged that debris was seen falling the missile, although officials said it posed “no additional risk” to the mission.

Despite these optimistic claims, however, reporters revealed that NASA looks a lot intention for them without photographing the Artemis launch tower – and now, with these preliminary reports of how messed up it seems to have gotten, we might be able to see why.

We don’t yet know how extensive the damage to the launch tower is, although we’ve reached out to NASA for comment. Fortunately, it wasn’t bad enough to prevent the Orion capsule from successfully launching into space and starting taking selfies and pictures of the moonthe least.

The real question? How will all this affect future launches of the SLS, which is due to send American astronauts back to the moon in just a few years.

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