Launch pads and equipment at Florida's Kennedy Space Center mostly escaped damage during Hurricane Matthew's fury but the repair bill will run into the millions.
The director of the NASA facility Robert Cabana says several buildings had their roofs damaged or destroyed as the eye of the hurricane passed just east of Cape Canaveral, home to the spaceport that serves as the US launch site for human spaceflight.
"It wasn't as bad as it could have been," Cabana told reporters on a conference call, but did not specifically say how much the repairs would cost.
Processing hangars for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, such as where its Orion spacecraft is being assembled for flight in 2018, were spared, Cabana said.
At launch pad 39A, which NASA is leasing to tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX company, winds reached 217 kilometres per hour.
Still, SpaceX's launch pad and a second pad, 39B, which NASA is refurbishing for its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket, withstood the winds and appeared to be in good shape, Cabana said.
The hurricane tracked just off Florida's east coast on Friday, sparing the state from a direct hit.
SpaceX's second Florida launch site, located just south of Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, had some damage to the exterior of its payload processing facility, SpaceX spokesman John Taylor wrote in an email to Reuters.
The hurricane damage is in addition to still-undisclosed damages from the September 1 explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad.
