NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission will once again attempt to launch after all.

Mission managers met on Monday (Nov. 14) to discuss the flight readiness of the Artemis 1's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft following slight damage caused by Hurricane Nicole, which was swiftly downgraded to a tropical storm after making landfall, on Thursday (Nov. 10). Despite the fact that a band of insulating caulking on Orion was damaged by high winds during the storm's landfall, Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager at NASA headquarters in Washington, said "there's no change in our plan to attempt to launch on the 16th" during a media teleconference today (Nov. 14).

"The unanimous recommendation for the team was that we were in a good position to go ahead and proceed with the launch countdown," added Jeremy Parsons, deputy manager of NASA's Exploration Ground Systems program at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. If all goes according to plan during additional preflight checks and the cryogenic fueling process on Tuesday (Nov. 15), the Artemis 1 mission will launch from Launch Pad 39B at 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) on Nov. 16. You can watch the countdown, fueling and launch of Artemis 1 live online here on Space.com courtesy of NASA. 

One of the main areas of concerns was a strip of insulating caulking known as RTV which is designed to smooth out a slight gap in the exterior of the Orion spacecraft. High winds during Hurricane Nicole stripped a 10-foot (3-meter) section of RTV off of Orion. After discovering the damage, there were concerns that the missing caulking could create unwanted airflow that could lead to excess heating during launch and flight. After reviewing the issue and performing multiple analyses, Artemis 1 mission managers feel that the vehicle is still flightworthy.