KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – For the second time in a week, NASA officials on Saturday canceled the test launch of a rocket that would one day carry astronauts to the moon. That is another setback for the special national spaceflight program, although NASA officials have expressed confidence that it will only be a temporary program.
But top NASA officials were behind Saturday’s decision to suspend the launch, and said they were willing to wait longer, perhaps trying again later this month or in October, after the cause of the crash. Hydrogen leak incidents are understood and resolved.
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, said in a press conference Saturday afternoon: “The cost of two scrubs is a lot less than one failure.
Despite being 322 feet tall, NASA’s new rocket isn’t too big to fail. But given how important this vehicle is to the space agency’s plans to go to the moon, it probably is.
NASA has spent more than $40 billion developing the rocket, called the Space Launch System, and the capsule, called Orion. The program was years behind schedule and over budget by billions of dollars. And it has drawn criticism from advocates of a more commercial approach to spacecraft, who say companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX offer the most efficient and cost-effective way to promote human journey to space.
Because NASA has invested so much in this one rocket, a catastrophic failure would put the lunar program on hold for years and could lead to questioning its worth.
Even those who aren’t fans of the Space Launch System say NASA’s caution is prudent.
“They won’t launch anytime soon,” said Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy administrator under the Obama administration, who said the rocket was too expensive and preferred commercial approaches to spaceflight. . “I’m not worried about that.”
The moon landings half a century ago were part of NASA’s Apollo program. The attempt to return to the new moon was named Artemis. In Greek mythology, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo.
The cleaned-up launch is for Artemis I, a weeklong, pilotless mission that will test rockets and a capsule where future astronauts will fly. Artemis’ next mission, now scheduled for 2024, will have astronauts on board, and a third Artemis mission is to bring astronauts near the moon’s south pole.
As the clock ticked down before Saturday’s launch, a hydrogen leak was detected in a connector along the hydrogen fuel line leading to the rocket.
“We know that when you exceed a concentration of about 4% of hydrogen in ambient air, you run the risk of experiencing a flammability incident,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission director.
For this leak, which Mr. Sarafin described as large, concentrations were two to three times the 4 percent limit. After three unsuccessful attempts to seal the leak, the launch attempt was postponed at 11:17 a.m. ET by the rocket’s director of launch, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson.
Mr. Sarafin said the problem may have been related to an incorrect command being sent to the propellant loading system on the launcher, which caused too much pressure – 60 pounds per square inch instead of 20 – in the fuel line for several days. second. That may have damaged the gasket in the connector.
A hydrogen leak appeared at the same connector during Monday’s first test launch, but it was smaller, and engineers figured out how to keep the hydrogen concentration below 4%, and they were able to fill the rocket with 537,000 gallons of hydrogen ultra-cold liquid. Monday’s launch was halted when a faulty sensor reported that one of the rocket’s four core-stage engines was not cooled enough.
After Saturday’s launch was delayed, NASA officials weighed options about what to do next. One is to simply disconnect and reconnect the fuel line and try to restart it after a few days. “But our confidence level, given the size of the leak we see today, is pretty low to be able to solve the problem,” Mr. Sarafin said.
Mission managers decided the pad would need to be replaced, and engineers are considering whether it would be better to do that work at the launch pad, where they can then run liquid hydrogen through the line to ensure guarantee a successful repair or the first return of the rocket to a giant structure known as the Vehicle Assembly Building. It would be easier to do repair work there, but engineers won’t be able to test the line with liquid hydrogen until the rocket has returned to the launch pad.
Jim Free, an associate administrator at NASA, said in a tweet that he and others at the agency are “disappointed with the results but proud of our team for consistently bringing solutions to the problem.” front”.
While Ms. Garver said the launch teams did the right thing by stopping the launch both times, she wondered about the design of the Space Launch System, which uses largely the same engines and the booster rocket that powers the launch. capacity for space shuttles – today’s technology goes back more than half a century.
“The choice to use the space shuttle engine was locked to hydrogen, and we knew the hydrogen was leaking,” she said. “Those are all design decisions that, if they continue to bite us, will be worrying.”
However, she added, “Assuming they can get through it in the next round. I think it will be forgotten.”
Even some disappointed spectators seemed to understand.
It was the second time in days that throngs of people along Central Florida’s waterways and beaches faced the disappointment of missing out on the opportunity to make their first most powerful rocket launch since. Saturn V sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
Last Monday, Vincent Anderson45-year-old Lake Alfred, Fla., took a boat tour with her son in hopes of seeing the rocket launch. It did not form.
As for his 10-year-old, he said: “Rockets are as delicate as cats, they fly when they want to.”
Then the scene replayed again this morning, when Mr. Anderson signed up for another boat tour, this time with his 15-year-old daughter. He called the rubbing “happy bittersweet” but assured them they had started the day with “the same expectation of ‘maybe not happening’.”
The launch again didn’t happen, but the outings were still well worth it, he said.
Christine Chung contribution report.
