Hurricane Ian prompts NASA to roll moon rocket off launchpad

NASA on Monday said it will roll its giant moon rocket off its launchpad in Florida and back to the assembly building to protect the vehicle from an advancing Hurricane Ian, whose strengthening winds are forecast to lash the Kennedy Space Center later this week.

"The decision allows time for employees to address the needs of their families and protect the integrated rocket and spacecraft system," NASA said in a statement.

The Space Launch System's rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building is a slow and delicate process that takes between eight and 11 hours to complete the roughly 5-mile trip.

Hurricane Ian is just the latest delay for the rocket, after weeks of troubleshooting by NASA after engineers detected a leak of supercooled hydrogen propellant in a valve while fuelling the rocket during an earlier attempt this month to launch.