For a third launch attempt, SLS and its Orion spacecraft were being prepped.
Last Thursday, NASA moved SLS to the launch pad.
As SLS approached, Nicole began to resemble a potential tropical storm.

On its Florida launchpad, NASA's brand-new $4 billion (approximately Rs. 32,280 crore) moon rocket withstood Hurricane Nicole early on Thursday, but it appears to have suffered only minimal damage, according to an initial NASA investigation in the wake of the storm.

The 32-story-tall rocket was put to the test by sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (136.8 km per hour), with gusts topping 100 mph. These winds also increased the risks to the spacecraft, which is already plagued by technical issues that have delayed its debut launch.

The US National Weather Service makes the wind sensor information from NASA available online. Before the storm, representatives of the US space agency stated that the rocket is made to endure exposure to winds of up to 85 mph while on the launchpad. NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free recognised wind sensor readings of gusts reaching 82 mph from a height of 60 feet in a quick tweet.

Nicole made landfall Thursday morning south of the Kennedy Space Center launch site, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and higher gusts.

NASA decided to shelter the enormous Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at the launchpad where it arrived last week before Nicole became forecast as a tropical storm rather than attempt to roll the spacecraft back to its hangar before the hurricane approached.

After two failed countdowns in the late summer, the SLS and its Orion capsule were getting ready for a third attempt, which would be their much-anticipated debut flight. The 12-hour task of transporting the enormous rocket in strong gusts as the storm approached, according to NASA engineers, was deemed too risky.

Jim Free, who is in charge of the majority of the agency's Artemis programme, tweeted on Thursday afternoon that camera checks had discovered very little damage, such as loose caulk and tears in weather covers. The team will shortly perform more in-person walk-down examinations of the vehicle.

For a much-delayed launch on November 14, NASA brought out SLS to the launch pad last Thursday with the intention of conducting an unmanned test flight to the moon. As SLS approached the launch pad, some 4 miles from where it had been parked inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, Nicole began to take shape as a potential tropical cyclone.

On Tuesday, NASA changed the intended launch date of the rocket to November 16, when forecasters anticipated Nicole would intensify into a hurricane. Although a November 16 launch has not been ruled out, a NASA official said on Thursday that it would be premature to confirm the date while staff is still being sent out for walk-down checks.