Subscribe to CNN’s science newsletter at Wonder Theory. Explore the universe with news of exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more. CNN —
The historic Artemis I mission – an uncrewed test flight around the moon that will use the world’s most powerful operational rocket – could finally fly this week, although the team is once again working out some problems ahead of the launch .
NASA’s mission team began fueling the rocket Tuesday afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of another launch attempt, which comes after weeks of battling various technical problems and setbacks that included the rocket enduring a Category 1 hurricane. For hours, the refueling seemed to go smoothly, advancing further in the countdown than the previous two launch attempts.
Then around 9:30 p.m. ET, intermittent leaks began to appear that at times were above the limit NASA officials had hoped to see.
“The teams have informed launch manager Charlie Blackwell-Thompson that there’s not much they can do from here if (leakage indications) come back” above the safety limit, NASA spokesman Derrol Nail said on the agency’s official live stream of the launch. .
Those leaks then forced the shutdown of the fuel tanks involved, and NASA deployed a “red crew” — a group of personnel specially trained to make repairs while the rocket is full of propellant. They tightened some nuts and bolts in hopes of stopping the leak.
This work ended shortly before 11 p.m. ET, according to Nail, and refueling operations have resumed.
Then the Eastern Range, a branch of the military that supports NASA by providing weather forecasting and post-launch tracking data, said one of its radars had gone down, according to Nail. The problem was a faulty ethernet switch which took over an hour to replace and testing of this fix is still ongoing.
The mission is still scheduled to launch overnight, with liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center scheduled to take place any time within a two-hour launch window that opened at 1:04 a.m. ET Wednesday. Given all the issues that came up Tuesday afternoon, NASA couldn’t go ahead with the launch at exactly 1:04 AM. ET — but it’s not yet clear how deep into the launch window that might happen.
The public can follow along with the mission by watching NASA’s live stream or, for those near the launch site, looking skyward from various public beaches and spotting if the rocket takes off.
The launch attempt began just days after Hurricane Nicole tore through Florida, bringing winds of up to 100 miles per hour (87 knots) to the launch site. By the time it became clear the storm was about to develop into a threat, there was not enough time to return the rocket indoors, the space agency said.
The rocket sustained only minor damage, according to NASA, including a 10-foot (3-meter) strip of caulk that came loose on the Orion spacecraft. Technicians have also checked an electrical connection in what’s called the tail service umbilical, a 33-foot-tall (10-meter-tall) structure that connects to the rocket’s engine area while at the launch site.
“We’re still seeing some quirks in this particular umbilical,” but engineers have other sources that can provide the same information as the link, said Mike Sarafin, director of the Artemis I mission.
And while there’s a “small chance” the caulking would dislodge during launch, the Artemis team determined it was within an acceptable range of risks, Sarafin said.
This caulking turned out to be another issue raised in the final hours before launch. Just after 1 a.m. ET — as the countdown clock was on hold at T-10 minutes — a final analysis confirmed the risk was acceptable, even if some of the caulking did fly, Nail said.
If the mission takes off, viewers can expect a dazzling display as the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket fires its four main engines and two side boosters to take off and burn into the night sky en route to the world. The Orion spacecraft will climb atop the rocket and cut off after reaching space. Orion is designed to carry people, but its passengers for this test mission will be of the inanimate variety, including some mannequins collecting vital data to help future crews.
After reaching orbit, the spacecraft is expected to begin a journey around the Moon, traveling about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) over about 25 and a half days. Orion will then launch into the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11 off the coast of San Diego, where recovery teams will be waiting nearby to bring it to safety.
The goal of the mission is to gather troves of data for NASA engineers and prove that the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are performing as expected before astronauts are allowed aboard.
Artemis I is just the first in a long line of increasingly difficult missions as NASA works toward its goal of establishing a permanent outpost on the moon. Artemis II will follow a similar course to Artemis I, but will have astronauts on board. Artemis III, planned for later this decade, is expected to land a woman and a person of color on the lunar surface for the first time. This mission will target the Moon’s south pole, where permanently shadowed regions may harbor ice and other resources that could sustain astronauts during long moonwalks.
Weather is always a wild card when it comes to launching from Florida, but forecasters said Tuesday afternoon that conditions are expected to be 90 percent favorable by the early hours of Wednesday.
Fuel leak issues may also sound familiar. The Artemis I mission team has had problems in the past with leaks that occurred while loading the rocket with supercooled liquid hydrogen, a central issue in Artemis’ first two launch attempts (and the decision to abort those attempts). After the most recent attempt in September, NASA did some troubleshooting and put the rocket through a power test. That test didn’t go exactly as planned, but the space agency deemed it a success and quickly moved on to planning the next launch attempt.
As the hours-long refueling process began, NASA took what it called a “kinder, gentler” approach to loading the fuel, a slower method used in hopes of avoiding spills. No major problems were reported as of 9 p.m. ET, as the countdown clock read lower than during any of Artemis I’s previous launch attempts. Only after the SLS rocket’s core stage, the rocket’s massive orange section, was completely fueled and needed only to “overshoot » continuously, problems arose.
Officials were asked during a press conference last week whether they intended to tighten the nuts and bolts that may have been the cause of the fuel leak and that the “red crew” was sent to talk to the launch site.
But Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said they didn’t.
“That’s not on the current schedule,” Free said.
If NASA goes ahead with liftoff, some of the most critical moments of the trip will happen shortly after the towering orange rocket clears the pad.
The rocket will experience Max Q — an aerospace term that basically means the rocket endures the maximum pressure it has to on its way into orbit — about a minute after liftoff. The rocket will then begin to deliberately drop parts, which will fall away from the Orion spacecraft and into the ocean, until a single engine remains attached to the teardrop-shaped capsule.
That rocket motor will need to perform a few critical burns to get Orion on track, including a very short burn about 50 minutes after launch and another 20-minute burn half an hour later. Two hours after launch, the capsule will separate from the large rocket engine and rely solely on small, on-board thrusters to steer the rest of the way.
This is a test mission, but NASA — and the corporate contractors who helped build the $4.1 billion SLS — have a lot going for it.
The rocket’s development has been billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, and has faced fierce critics and criticism of the balloon’s cost, which has made it far more expensive than originally projected. The space agency is eager to prove that the architecture it designed will work as promised, even if there are obstacles to overcome along the way.
title: “Nasa S Historic Mission To The Moon Faces Fuel Leakage Problems Before Launch " ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-07” author: “Kara Mitchell”
Subscribe to CNN’s science newsletter at Wonder Theory. Explore the universe with news of exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more. CNN —
The historic Artemis I mission – an uncrewed test flight around the moon that will use the world’s most powerful operational rocket – could finally fly this week, although the team is once again working out some problems ahead of the launch .
NASA’s mission team began fueling the rocket Tuesday afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of another launch attempt, which comes after weeks of battling various technical problems and setbacks that included the rocket enduring a Category 1 hurricane. For hours, the refueling seemed to go smoothly, advancing further in the countdown than the previous two launch attempts.
Then around 9:30 p.m. ET, intermittent leaks began to appear that at times were above the limit NASA officials had hoped to see.
“The teams have informed launch manager Charlie Blackwell-Thompson that there’s not much they can do from here if (leakage indications) come back” above the safety limit, NASA spokesman Derrol Nail said on the agency’s official live stream of the launch. .
Those leaks then forced the shutdown of the fuel tanks involved, and NASA deployed a “red crew” — a group of personnel specially trained to make repairs while the rocket is full of propellant. They tightened some nuts and bolts in hopes of stopping the leak.
This work ended shortly before 11 p.m. ET, according to Nail, and refueling operations have resumed.
Then the Eastern Range, a branch of the military that supports NASA by providing weather forecasting and post-launch tracking data, said one of its radars had gone down, according to Nail. The problem was a faulty ethernet switch which took over an hour to replace and testing of this fix is still ongoing.
The mission is still scheduled to launch overnight, with liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center scheduled to take place any time within a two-hour launch window that opened at 1:04 a.m. ET Wednesday. Given all the issues that came up Tuesday afternoon, NASA couldn’t go ahead with the launch at exactly 1:04 AM. ET — but it’s not yet clear how deep into the launch window that might happen.
The public can follow along with the mission by watching NASA’s live stream or, for those near the launch site, looking skyward from various public beaches and spotting if the rocket takes off.
The launch attempt began just days after Hurricane Nicole tore through Florida, bringing winds of up to 100 miles per hour (87 knots) to the launch site. By the time it became clear the storm was about to develop into a threat, there was not enough time to return the rocket indoors, the space agency said.
The rocket sustained only minor damage, according to NASA, including a 10-foot (3-meter) strip of caulk that came loose on the Orion spacecraft. Technicians have also checked an electrical connection in what’s called the tail service umbilical, a 33-foot-tall (10-meter-tall) structure that connects to the rocket’s engine area while at the launch site.
“We’re still seeing some quirks in this particular umbilical,” but engineers have other sources that can provide the same information as the link, said Mike Sarafin, director of the Artemis I mission.
And while there’s a “small chance” the caulking would dislodge during launch, the Artemis team determined it was within an acceptable range of risks, Sarafin said.
This caulking turned out to be another issue raised in the final hours before launch. Just after 1 a.m. ET — as the countdown clock was on hold at T-10 minutes — a final analysis confirmed the risk was acceptable, even if some of the caulking did fly, Nail said.
If the mission takes off, viewers can expect a dazzling display as the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket fires its four main engines and two side boosters to take off and burn into the night sky en route to the world. The Orion spacecraft will climb atop the rocket and cut off after reaching space. Orion is designed to carry people, but its passengers for this test mission will be of the inanimate variety, including some mannequins collecting vital data to help future crews.
After reaching orbit, the spacecraft is expected to begin a journey around the Moon, traveling about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) over about 25 and a half days. Orion will then launch into the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11 off the coast of San Diego, where recovery teams will be waiting nearby to bring it to safety.
The goal of the mission is to gather troves of data for NASA engineers and prove that the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are performing as expected before astronauts are allowed aboard.
Artemis I is just the first in a long line of increasingly difficult missions as NASA works toward its goal of establishing a permanent outpost on the moon. Artemis II will follow a similar course to Artemis I, but will have astronauts on board. Artemis III, planned for later this decade, is expected to land a woman and a person of color on the lunar surface for the first time. This mission will target the Moon’s south pole, where permanently shadowed regions may harbor ice and other resources that could sustain astronauts during long moonwalks.
Weather is always a wild card when it comes to launching from Florida, but forecasters said Tuesday afternoon that conditions are expected to be 90 percent favorable by the early hours of Wednesday.
Fuel leak issues may also sound familiar. The Artemis I mission team has had problems in the past with leaks that occurred while loading the rocket with supercooled liquid hydrogen, a central issue in Artemis’ first two launch attempts (and the decision to abort those attempts). After the most recent attempt in September, NASA did some troubleshooting and put the rocket through a power test. That test didn’t go exactly as planned, but the space agency deemed it a success and quickly moved on to planning the next launch attempt.
As the hours-long refueling process began, NASA took what it called a “kinder, gentler” approach to loading the fuel, a slower method used in hopes of avoiding spills. No major problems were reported as of 9 p.m. ET, as the countdown clock read lower than during any of Artemis I’s previous launch attempts. Only after the SLS rocket’s core stage, the rocket’s massive orange section, was completely fueled and needed only to “overshoot » continuously, problems arose.
Officials were asked during a press conference last week whether they intended to tighten the nuts and bolts that may have been the cause of the fuel leak and that the “red crew” was sent to talk to the launch site.
But Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said they didn’t.
“That’s not on the current schedule,” Free said.
If NASA goes ahead with liftoff, some of the most critical moments of the trip will happen shortly after the towering orange rocket clears the pad.
The rocket will experience Max Q — an aerospace term that basically means the rocket endures the maximum pressure it has to on its way into orbit — about a minute after liftoff. The rocket will then begin to deliberately drop parts, which will fall away from the Orion spacecraft and into the ocean, until a single engine remains attached to the teardrop-shaped capsule.
That rocket motor will need to perform a few critical burns to get Orion on track, including a very short burn about 50 minutes after launch and another 20-minute burn half an hour later. Two hours after launch, the capsule will separate from the large rocket engine and rely solely on small, on-board thrusters to steer the rest of the way.
This is a test mission, but NASA — and the corporate contractors who helped build the $4.1 billion SLS — have a lot going for it.
The rocket’s development has been billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, and has faced fierce critics and criticism of the balloon’s cost, which has made it far more expensive than originally projected. The space agency is eager to prove that the architecture it designed will work as promised, even if there are obstacles to overcome along the way.
