Artemis I eyes Saturday launch
NASA officials are more confident that the Saturday launch attempt of its Artemis I mission to the moon will be successful after poring over data that led to Monday’s scrub, while weather may cooperate as well.
In fact, Monday’s scrub at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center might have been unnecessary after NASA discovered the main reason for it was inaccurate sensor readings. Although there were several issues during the countdown that caused stress for the launch teams, the false reading was that one of the four RS-25 engines at the base of the Space Launch System rocket core stage had not cooled enough for a safe launch.
“We had some sensors that didn’t tell us what we thought,” said NASA SLS chief engineer John Blevins during a mission update Thursday. “We did the right thing by standing down with that uncertainty on Monday but we have confirmed that we did have good flow through those engines. We know we can chill those engines. We’re ready to proceed.”
Blevins said those sensors, which are unreachable on the launch pad, will be ignored for Saturday’s attempt. The twohour launch window for liftoff opens at 2:17 p.m. with a backup launch attempt available on Monday during a 90-minute window that opens at 5:12 p.m.
Weather for Saturday’s attempt is looking better
than earlier forecasts, with the Space Launch Delta 45 weather squadron giving it a 60 percent chance for good conditions at the opening of the window, and improving later in the afternoon.
“I do expect to make some no-go calls at some point,” said SLD 45 weather officer Melody Lovin on Friday. “However, as that East Coast sea breeze drifts farther inland, we do expect clearing on the backside of that, and that is the reason why we are turning the forecast to more of an 80 percent favorability at the end of the launch window.”
If it delays, the Monday forecast odds are set to 70 percent.
“I do not expect weather to be a showstopper by any means for either launch window,” she said.
Crowds on the Space Coast to watch the launch could approach 400,000, according to the Brevard County Emergency Operations Center, with traffic delays expected on either
side of the attempt. That would more than double the estimated crowd that left town disappointed on Monday.
The Monday scrub in some ways was due to issues faced during tanking that then pressed NASA teams for time. That included detection of a potential hydrogen leak along with weather that forced holds in the countdown. Later in the count, the test of what is known as the bleed system of supercooled liquid hydrogen into the engines proved too complicated to work around in the time remaining before liftoff.
While mission managers have addressed the possible hydrogen leak and determined the engines cooled during the bleed test despite the sensor readings, more time in the countdown clock was added to better troubleshoot issues that may arise.
“So this is a test flight, right? And so while I feel very good about our procedures, when you look the team in the eye, they’re ready,” said Jeremy Parsons, deputy manager for NASA’S Exploration Ground Systems.
The goal if the rocket launches Saturday is to send the SLS rocket topped with the uncrewed Orion capsule on a 38-day mission to orbit the moon several times before it heads back for a splashdown on Earth in the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 11.
The core stage combined with its two solid rocket boosters will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust on liftoff, making SLS the most powerful rocket to launch from the Earth — besting the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo program.
The mission looks to push the extremes for Orion. It is being sent on a much longer mission than if it were traveling with humans, and its heat shield needs to hold up as it becomes the fastest human-rated spacecraft to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, at a speed of 24,500 mph producing temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Three mannequins are strapped into Orion to test out a new space survival suit as well as a radiation protection jacket.
If all goes well, the mission will pave the way for Artemis II in 2024 that would take four astronauts on an orbital mission of the moon. That would be followed by Artemis III, which aims to return humans —including the first woman — to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.