NASA’s next-generation lunar rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) with the Orion crew capsule on top sits at Launch Complex 39B as it prepares for launch for the Artemis 1 mission in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., on September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
For the second time in a week, NASA aborted an attempt to launch its next-generation giant rocket on Saturday, citing a stubborn fuel leak that the space agency said could delay the debut mission of its Artemis program from the Moon to Mars in the hours. at least a few weeks.
Preliminary operations were suspended for the day about three hours before the scheduled 2:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT) liftoff time for the 32-story-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its capsule Orion from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The uncrewed test flight, intended to launch the capsule to the Moon and back, was to have marked the maiden voyage of both the SLS and Orion half a century after the last Apollo lunar mission lo, precursor of the Artemisa program.
The countdown was cleared after Kennedy Space Center technicians made three failed attempts to fix a “major” leak of supercooled liquid hydrogen propellant that was being pumped into the rocket’s center stage fuel tanks, they said. say agency officials.
Monday’s initial launch test was also thwarted by technical issues, including a different leaking fuel line, a faulty temperature sensor and cracks found in the insulation foam.
Mission managers proceeded with a second launch attempt on Saturday once the previous problems had been resolved to their satisfaction. And NASA had set aside another backup launch time, either Monday or Tuesday, in case a third attempt was needed.
But after a review of data from the latest difficulties, NASA concluded that the new hydrogen leak was too complicated and required a lot of time to finish troubleshooting and fix them on the launch pad before it expired the current launch period assigned to the mission Tuesday.
The delay means the first chance to try again would come during the next launch period from Sept. 19 to 30, or during a later October window, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said. to journalists in a late afternoon briefing.
He said the postponement would also involve returning the spacecraft to its assembly building, under Cape Canaveral’s “range” rules that limit how long a rocket can remain in its launch tower before undergoing another round of security controls inside.
Mike Sarafin, manager of NASA’s Artemis mission, said efforts to resolve the latest technical snag would involve “several weeks of work.”
NASA chief Bill Nelson said earlier in the day that a pushback would delay the next launch attempt until at least mid-October, in part to avoid a scheduling conflict with the next International Space Station crew which was set to launch earlier this month.
Launch-day delays and malfunctions are not uncommon in the space business, especially for new rockets like NASA’s Space Launch System, a complex vehicle with a set of pre-liftoff procedures that engineers are still figuring out. ‘they must try and rehearse completely without any problem. .
On average, the odds of clearing a pitch on a day for any reason, including bad weather, are about one in three.
“We’re not going to go live until it’s right, and that’s standard operating procedure, and it will continue to be,” Nelson said at the briefing.
The last-minute launch pad setbacks came at the end of a more than decade-long development program, with years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns under the respective SLS and Orion contracts of NASA with Boeing Co BN and Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N.
MOON TO MARS
Despite its technical challenges, Artemis I marks a major turning point for NASA’s post-Apollo human spaceflight program, after decades focused on low-Earth orbit with space shuttles and International Space Station.
Named after the goddess who was the twin sister of Apollo in ancient Greek mythology, Artemis aims to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon as early as 2025, although many experts believe that time frame is likely to be will escape
Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, the only space flights that have yet placed humans on the lunar surface. But Apollo, born of the US-Soviet space race during the Cold War, was less driven by science than Artemis.
The new moon program has enlisted commercial partners such as SpaceX and the space agencies of Europe, Canada and Japan to establish a long-term lunar base of operations as a springboard for even more ambitious human journeys to Mars.
The launch of the SLS-Orion spacecraft is a key first step. Its maiden voyage aims to put the 5.75 million-pound vehicle on a rigorous test flight that will push its design limits and prove the spacecraft is fit to fly astronauts .
If the mission is successful, a crewed Artemis II flight around the Moon and back could come as soon as 2024, to be followed in a few more years by the program’s first lunar landing of astronauts, one of them a woman, with Artemis III.
Considered the world’s most powerful and complex rocket, the SLS represents the largest new vertical launch system NASA has built since the Apollo-era Saturn V.
Although there will be no humans on board, Orion will carry a simulated crew of three (one male and two female dummies) equipped with sensors to measure radiation levels and other stresses that real-life astronauts would experience.