4 astronauts should wait a bit of longer earlier than launching on their historic mission to the moon.
Their rocket, the House Launch System (SLS), rolled again from Launch Complicated-39B (LC-39B) to the Automobile Meeting Constructing (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy House Middle (KSC) in Florida at present (Feb. 25). It is now safely tucked contained in the VAB’s Excessive Bay 3, the place engineers will start work to deal with points on the rocket’s higher stage, in an space inaccessible out on the pad.
SLS’ helium problem was found in a single day from Feb. 20 to Feb. 21, a day after completion of a “moist costume rehearsal,” throughout which the rocket was totally fueled and run via a simulated launch countdown. It was the second such fueling check for SLS, however the first to have been deemed a hit. The primary ended sooner than deliberate on Feb. 2 after a liquid hydrogen leak was detected throughout SLS core stage propellant loading, and had its mission clock flip an auto-abort command at T-5:15.
“The staff was unable to get helium move via the automobile” throughout a routine purge and repressurization process on SLS’ Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stated in a Feb. 21 submit on X.
Helium is saved in tanks linked to the ICPS, that are solely accessible whereas the rocket is contained in the VAB, forcing NASA’s resolution to roll the rocket again and delay its launch. In his X submit, Isaacman identified that the difficulty may have a number of completely different doable causes, and that rolling again would enable engineers to pinpoint what went improper.
Artemis 1‘s launch marketing campaign in 2022 additionally had points — a persistent hydrogen leak, for instance. That uncrewed mission to lunar orbit required three journeys between the VAB and LC-39B over the course of a number of months earlier than NASA was capable of clear SLS for launch, which it will definitely did in November that yr. Now, the company is hoping to keep away from a a number of rollback repeat, with Isaacman stating in his submit that “corrective actions have been taken to attenuate reoccurrence on Artemis 2.”
Artemis 2 launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson gave the “go” order to start the SLS rollback this morning at 9:28 a.m. EST (1428 GMT), with first movement coming roughly 10 minutes later, in line with a NASA replace. The 322-foot-tall (98.15-meter) SLS rocket then made its method down the mild slope of LC-39B atop NASA’s large Crawler-Transporter 2 automobile, starting the 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) journey again to the VAB.
The crawler trucked alongside the Alabama river rock-lined street between the pad and VAB at about 1 mph (1.6 kph), crushing the stones beneath its treads to sand underneath the burden of the rocket and transporter.
The Artemis 2 stack reached the VAB at about 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT on Feb. 26), in line with NASA officers, that means that at present’s trek took 10.5 hours. Now that it is safely again contained in the VAB, NASA hopes to diagnose and restore the rocket’s higher stage points in time to roll SLS again to LC-39B and, presumably, full a 3rd moist costume rehearsal forward of Artemis 2’s early April launch window, which opens April 1, with different alternatives every day from April 3-6.
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