Scrubbed Artemis 1 Launch Prompts Concerns About Unfinished Rehearsals

GIzmodo ^ | 08/30/2022 | ByGeorge Dvorsky

[BenLurkin]

On Monday, NASA failed in its first attempt to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, with engineers struggling to resolve an engine cooling issue. It’s a wholly unsurprising result, given that NASA was unable to complete a single wet dress rehearsal, of which four were attempted earlier in the year. The space agency appears to be winging it, with the botched launch attempt effectively serving as the fifth wet dress rehearsal, in what is a troubling sign.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) was supposed to take flight on Monday morning, but instead we’re left wondering about the state of the program as a whole. NASA will provide more updates about the rocket later this evening, including whether a launch on Friday or Monday might be possible, or whether the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket will have to make its now-familiar 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.

The unflown SLS megarocket is critical to NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks a permanent and sustainable return to the Moon. For the Artemis 1 mission, an uncrewed Orion rocket will be sent on a multi-week mission to the Moon and back. A successful integrated test of SLS and Orion would set the stage for a crewed Artemis 2 mission in roughly two years, and a crewed mission to land on the lunar surface later this decade.

A launch on Friday seems unlikely, and not just because of the grim weather forecast. NASA’s launch attempt on Monday came nowhere near to succeeding, with the countdown clock proceeding no further than T-40 minutes. An “engine bleed” issue prevented one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines from reaching the required ultra-cold temperature for liftoff, resulting in the scrub.

[jonrick46]

“John Honeycutt, manager of the Space Launch System Program from Marshall Space Flight Center, said the problem may have actually come from a faulty sensor, rather than the engine not cooling down enough.”

“NASA officials said there is no sign one of the engines needs to replaced on the Artemis I rocket after the launch was scrubbed.”

[Waverunner]

Understand, My dad built tracking gear at the Cape for Radiation inc. ( now Harris), and our neighbor worked on the Crawler from design until he retired in the 90’s. 4 bit computers with 1k memory (or less). My Dad would take us out to the Pads on the weekend ( He had a couple of secret fishing spots on the banana river, and a place he liked to surf fish when the blues were running) and we could walk up to them even if they had a missile on them, unless they were fueled. I remember the crawler coming back from placing a Saturn 1,and we got out of the car and walked alongside it for a while. Different times, we got out of class in elementary school so see launches, so Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches, or any satellites going up, like echo, telstar, or the surveyors going to the moon, we were able to watch. Some Gemini astronauts came to our school, and brought some liquid nitrogen, They got out some gloves and tongs, bounced a red rubber ball, then placed the red rubber ball in it and shattered it by dropping it to the floor. Cool thing to watch when your 9 years old. On you tube watch the first 5 minutes of Frankenstein meets the Space Monster. It’s a view of A1A leading past Patrick AFB through Cocoa Beach , through the Cape Canaveral gate and up to the old Admin building. Good Times.

[Waverunner]

If you watch the youtube video, as a kid I climbed on the Snark in front of Patrick and scooted out to the nose. An Air Police guy came by in a jeep, yelled up “ Don’t fall off on my shift”, so I scooted back down. My dad was fishing across A1A on the beach, and his rule was “ I don’t want to hear that you got in trouble”, otherwise we were free to explore and play. Different times.