CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Employees will report to work as usual Tuesday at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Patrick Air Force Base, which had shut down in the middle of last week as Hurricane Matthew approached the Space Coast as a dangerous Category 4 storm.
NASA on Monday evening declared an "all clear" for KSC, saying the center would reopen at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
"Employees should report to work at their normal duty times," an advisory said. "KSC recovery operations are ongoing and personnel should use caution when returning to work."
KSC said some stoplights were out, there was still potential for debris and some facilities in the Launch Complex 39 and Vehicle Assembly Building area remained in "recovery phase." Alternate work arrangements will be made as needed in offices lacking air conditioning.
Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are resuming normal operations a day after the 45th Space Wing and United Launch Alliance offloaded an Atlas V rocket booster flown into the Skid Strip late Sunday on an Antonov aircraft, according to the Florida Today.
"The wing is close to being back to 100 percent and this is a huge step in the right direction," said Brig Gen. Wayne Monteith, the 45th Space Wing commander, in an update Monday on Facebook.
The booster next month is slated to launch the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-R weather satellite, which survived the storm in a Titusville processing facility.
The Air Force previously had reported that a missile warning satellite being prepared for launch from Cape Canaveral was in good shape.
United Launch Alliance on Monday reported "minor to moderate" damage at its Cape facilities. Hardest hit, the company said, was some ground equipment at Launch Complex 41's processing tower, where Atlas V rockets are prepared for launch; the doors on the Delta IV rocket's mobile service tower at Launch Complex 37, and the roof of the Delta Operations Center.
SpaceX said launch pad 39A at KSC fared well and no flight hardware was harmed, but the payload processing facility at Space Launch Complex 40 did sustain some exterior damage.
"The company has a ready and fully capable backup for processing payloads at its SLC-40 hangar annex building," said John Taylor, a SpaceX spokesman.
SpaceX continues to investigate the cause of a Falcon 9 rocket's explosion during a Sept. 1 test at complex 40, but has said it could return to flight from pad 39A in the "November timeframe."
The KSC Visitor Complex reopened on Sunday and resumed bus tours to the Apollo/Saturn V Center on Monday. Some special interest bus tours still won't be offered Tuesday with KSC "still in clean-up mode."