NASA Rolls Back Its 'Space Launch System' Mega Rocket (arstechnica.com) 54
"After three attempts to complete a critical fueling test of the Space Launch System rocket, NASA has decided to take a break," reports Ars Technica:
On Saturday night the space agency announced plans to roll the large SLS rocket from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center to the Vehicle Assembly Building in the coming days. This marks a notable step back for the program, which has tried since April 1 to complete a "wet dress rehearsal" test, during which the rocket is fueled and brought to within 10 seconds of launch. The decision comes after three tries during the last two weeks. Each fueling attempt was scuttled by one or more technical issues with the rocket, its mobile launch tower, or ground systems that supply propellants and gases. During the most recent attempt, on Thursday April 14, NASA succeeded in loading 49 percent of the core-stage liquid oxygen fuel tank and 5 percent of the liquid hydrogen tank. [NASA reports that the team ended the test after "observing a liquid hydrogen leak on the tail service mast umbilical."]
While this represents progress, it did not include the most dynamic portion of the test, during which the rocket is fully fueled and pressurized; and it, the ground systems, and computer systems are put into a terminal countdown when every variable is closely monitored. NASA had hoped to complete this wet dress rehearsal test to work out the kinks in the complicated launch system so that, when the rocket is rolled out later this year for its actual launch, the countdown will proceed fairly smoothly. NASA said that its contractors, as well as its agency's, will use the next several weeks to address problems that cropped up during the fueling tests when the SLS rocket returns to the large Vehicle Assembly Building. For example, gaseous nitrogen system supplier Air Liquide will upgrade its capabilities. NASA will also replace a faulty check valve on the upper stage of the rocket, as well as fix a leak on the mobile launch tower's "tail service mast umbilical," a 10-meter-tall structure that provides propellant and electricity lines to the rocket on the pad....
Still, NASA seems confident that it will get through this painful teething process for the SLS rocket: a program that is now 11 years old and in which NASA has invested more than $30 billion in the rocket and ground systems now being tested. "There's no doubt in my mind that we will finish this test campaign, and we will listen to the hardware, and the data will lead us to the next step," Blackwell-Thompson said Friday. "And we will take the appropriate steps, and we will launch this vehicle. I don't know exactly what that date is, but there's no doubt in my mind that we'll finish the test campaign, and we will be ready to go fly."
While this represents progress, it did not include the most dynamic portion of the test, during which the rocket is fully fueled and pressurized; and it, the ground systems, and computer systems are put into a terminal countdown when every variable is closely monitored. NASA had hoped to complete this wet dress rehearsal test to work out the kinks in the complicated launch system so that, when the rocket is rolled out later this year for its actual launch, the countdown will proceed fairly smoothly. NASA said that its contractors, as well as its agency's, will use the next several weeks to address problems that cropped up during the fueling tests when the SLS rocket returns to the large Vehicle Assembly Building. For example, gaseous nitrogen system supplier Air Liquide will upgrade its capabilities. NASA will also replace a faulty check valve on the upper stage of the rocket, as well as fix a leak on the mobile launch tower's "tail service mast umbilical," a 10-meter-tall structure that provides propellant and electricity lines to the rocket on the pad....
Still, NASA seems confident that it will get through this painful teething process for the SLS rocket: a program that is now 11 years old and in which NASA has invested more than $30 billion in the rocket and ground systems now being tested. "There's no doubt in my mind that we will finish this test campaign, and we will listen to the hardware, and the data will lead us to the next step," Blackwell-Thompson said Friday. "And we will take the appropriate steps, and we will launch this vehicle. I don't know exactly what that date is, but there's no doubt in my mind that we'll finish the test campaign, and we will be ready to go fly."
Meanwhile the FAA is Dragging Heals on Starship (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems obvious, at least to me, that the government agencies have been trying to subvert the SpaceX Starship competition by holding up launch permission for SpaceX, while giving this pile of Boeing dog shit extra chances it doesn't deserve. And yes, I'm still angry about Boeing's lies about the Canadair C Series jets that effectively shut down a Canadian aircraft company. And the long dead Avro Arrow. All with US government subsidies and backdoor help. Anyway, fuck Boeing. I hope their executives choke on their own dicks.
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Re:Meanwhile the FAA is Dragging Heals on Starship (Score:4, Interesting)
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SpaceX just didn't file the needed paperwork. They can still launch out of KSC, where the environmental impact studies have already been properly done.
Nope, you're talking about the Boca Chica expansion plans filed with the Army Corps of Engineers, that is the application where SpaceX didn't file needed paperwork and was cancelled. The parent poster was talking about the FAA application for flight operations at Boca Chica, which has been mysteriously delayed multiple times [space.com]. FTFA:
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It looks like Space/X is still moving rapidly without flight testing. They'll probably scrap Booster 4 and Ship 20, having learned much of what they could from them and built newer, better spacecraft. I figure they're getting 80% of the benefit of having built them even without launching them. As time goes on, the importance of launching goes up, though. Even if they wait to do their first launch from Florida, it shouldn't set their schedule back too far.
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Boeing is an example of everything that is wrong with private / public partnerships.
And SpaceX is a good example of private/public done right. Though I think the public should have actual equity in the company for all the money they've poured in. Especially considering big tech companies consider taxes to be optional these days.
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It seems obvious, at least to me, that the government agencies have been trying to subvert the SpaceX Starship competition by holding up launch permission for SpaceX,
I think there were so many responses to the Request For Comments after Musk asked for them that the FAA are still going through them.
while giving this pile of Boeing dog shit extra chances it doesn't deserve.
Yep
And yes, I'm still angry about Boeing's lies about the Canadair C Series jets that effectively shut down a Canadian aircraft company.
Why am I not surprised about another skeleton in Boeing's closet.
And the long dead Avro Arrow. All with US government subsidies and backdoor help.
What an amazing aircraft and a shame the way it was completely obliterated.
Anyway, fuck Boeing. I hope their executives choke on their own dicks.
yep, though I think it is the McDonnell Douglas executive that are in control of Boeing now so if they apply the same "sale sale sales" mindset to SLS we can be assured of a bright future for SpaceX.
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This. For crying out loud, how long does it take to review a bunch of comments from people who know nothing about biology or ecology, and who just don't want a rocket in their back yard?
They'll get it sorted.... (Score:5, Insightful)
New rocket, new launch facilities (well, at least significantly overhauled since the last launch there), new problems. It happens to all rockets, and isn't surprising here. It may take them a month, or two, to get things sorted out, but they're gonna light the candle and it'll be spectacular.
This, of course, is completely independent of the question of whether they should bother. Figure that the roar of the engine, and the thrust of the booster, is created from shoving $2,000,000,000USD into the combustion chamber and lighting them for every single launch. After spending $30,000,000,000USD, they have a magnificent rocket and a manufacturing facility that can build one a year. After spending roughly a third of that, SpaceX has developed a similar rocket that's REUSABLE, and a manufacturing facility that can build a dozen or so a year. After two years, you could have zero SLS rockets (two of them expended in the ocean, and one being built), or two dozen Starships - all of which could be on their second or third mission. After five years, you could have zero SLS rockets (five of them expended, one being built), or 60 Starships.
Sigh.
Re:They'll get it sorted.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The problem of the old companies was that regardless of the actual details they were effectively working on a "cost plus" model, where if their costs went up they would get those and something extra on top back. Thus there was no incentive to be effective.
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This is how Oracle ends up on contracts (well, plus government contracts specifying it as a requirement.)
You charge 20% on top of what Oracle charges for the license.
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Somehow the companies that have been building these things for decades are decades behind SpaceX.
Indeed, the emperor has no clothes!
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The other companies didn't want reusable vehicles because they were being paid to build vehicles. The more that falls into the ocean or never comes back from space, the more there is to build another copy of.
SpaceX's business model is different - they make money from delivering payloads to orbit, rather than delivering launch hardware to a pad. Therefore anything that can reduce the cost of a launch is seen as a good thing, with 100% reusability as the ultimate goal.
ULA can suck it.
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You can imagine the morale at SLS would be kinda low.
Re: They'll get it sorted.... (Score:2)
To be fair some of the starships would blow up from mishaps. After 5 years you would probably have 40-50 of them.
Yes to all except the lead premise... (Score:4, Interesting)
I completely agree with everything except the opening premise...
New rocket ... new problems. It happens to all rockets, and isn't surprising here.
...because it's simply not true. It's not a new rocket. That was the whole point, it was supposed to "save" money by reusing the space shuttle design. Take the shuttle, bolt its engines onto the bottom of the external tank instead of having the weight of the orbiter, and then strap on the same boosters. That's it. That's the SLS.
So, by design, it introduces no new technology. No innovation. And all that money is being burned up in order to resurrect 1970s technology. We just don't have that infrastructure any more, and the waste of bringing it back is astounding.
SLS is just the latest reason why I now believe that NASA can be trusted with exactly nothing. My direct interest with NASA started with the shuttle. Like most everyone else, I had a complete love affair with NASA in the 80s over the shuttle and Voyager and all the rest. I resisted disillusionment with the revelations after Challenger. But then came:
-Mars Climate Orbiter
-The Hubble mirror scandal
-Columbia
-Curiosity
-SLS
-The Boeing StarLiner contract/development fiasco
Every one of those a complete debacle. The closer you look, the more it makes you realize the problems are 100% endemic in NASA's trough-eating self-protective pork barrel mentality. And once your bubble bursts, you then go back and revisit the love affair you had originally had with the Shuttle, and you realize that program was all, one hundred percent smoke and mirrors. The shuttle was a terrible program from beginning to end. And the whole infrastructure around it was intentionally designed to mask how truly awful it was and to mask the amount of money poured into it. The whole "reusable" thing was a mask - the entire orbiter was basically rebuilt after each launch, and the accounting masked to hide those expenses. It was not a success - they lost 40% of their fleet and 4% of their crew in preventable circumstances. And both investigations (seventeen years apart) resulted in findings of terrible decision making and both said the problems at NASA were systemic.
And so we are giving them more billions than every private spacecraft builder combined for SLS and Orion, which are years late and triple the cost and, surprise surprise, the way funding has been orchestrated has designed to mask both of those facts. And the SLS will, at its best case scenario, by fucking design, provide no new technology because it's just reusing the worst parts of the already terrible shuttle program.
Boeing's Starliner is just the same, too. Of the two "selected" return-to-space winners, it was the more expensive by a factor of two. Really it was NASA's "we just don't like SpaceX" pick, because NASA executives openly despised SpaceX from the beginning. To justify the extra cost, NASA called Starliner the "contingency" - it was more expensive because it was the less riskier of the two options. Really what happened is that Boeing was selected told "get it done before and better than Crew Dragon whatever the cost" and Boeing said, ok, here's the cost to which Nasa just said yup. Boeing's job was to justify NASA in sidelining SpaceX. Every time there were conflicting NASA resources that both projects needed, Boeing was scheduled first. Even if it was a resource Boeing didn't need, any time SpaceX called up asking for some test facility, NASA would put then on hold and called Boeing on the other line and say "hey, SpaceX is asking for this, we need you to ask for it too so we can justify denying them because you're 'already' scheduled first". Of the two, Starliner was the project that NASA had the most hand's on with, and... what a shock... it was the project they almost lost on their first test flight. In fact, they [b]would[/b] have lost the vehicle if another, unrelated but also mission-failing bug hadn't shown up first and made them scared enou
Curiosity & Scarecrow (Score:1)
Curiosity is doing pretty well, except they have to be very careful with it because its wheels are showing a lot of damage and that limits what they can do and where it can go. When the center wheels started showing some significant damage, it came quite a surprise to them. It was a surprise because they had build a test rover called Scarecrow and driven it over much longer and rougher terrain than the plan was for Curiosity, and except for a couple minor dents, the wheels on Scarecrow were perfect. When
Oops (Score:2)
Tsk tsk tsk. Not a good look.
Dinosaurs go extinct (Score:2)
Re:Dinosaurs go extinct (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't NASA. It is Congress which mandated this contractor-welfare boondoggle. There is a reason that wags call SLS the "Senate Launch System".
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It isn't NASA. It is Congress which mandated this contractor-welfare boondoggle. There is a reason that wags call SLS the "Senate Launch System".
It's neither NASA nor Congress, that's like claiming "it wasn't me, it was my hand that did it". They both are just different organs of the monstrous organism called the State.
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It provided a LOT of jobs for a LOT of people, so the SLS is an absolute success. Whether it actually flies or not is in that respect completely irrelevant.
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SpaceX is doing it right. NASA needs to do what it does best, robotic missions, and pass the torch for human space flight to private companies.
It did. NASA funded SpaceX to develop the Falcon-9 to launch cargo to the Space Station, and is now buying launches; and it funded SpaceX to develop the Crew Dragon capsule to launch humans to the Space Station. and is now buying launches.
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They also funded Boeing to launch crew, with more money than to SpaceX, and... where is it? Oh yeah, it still hasn't successfully reached ISS, for long enough that the commercial crew contract for SpaceX had to be expanded with more launches, to make up for all the crew missions that Boeing hasn't launched.
Yep. They funded two competitors.
Pull the plug ! Pull the plug ! (Score:2, Insightful)
It might have been needed for a couple of launches had it launched on schedule, but once Starship flies it is a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY.
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Nah, diversification is good. It just seems to be too expensive and failing. Maybe we need to use the Chinese rocket.
Meanwhile.... (Score:2)
SpaceX is launching one broomstick per week and recovering all its boosters.
Typical big federal government program (Score:2)
Unsurprisingly it's way over budget, way behind schedule and no consequences for those responsible.
SLS not bleeding edge space program like NASA managed in the1960s. It's design is outdated using shuttle tech and no reusability.
The smart solution is to cancel this program and hire out transporting the lander to and from lunar orbit. Kill it and send a message.
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The engines are pretty advanced. Too bad we're taking engines that were reused multiple times as part of the shuttle, and then THROWING THEM AWAY as part of the SLS launch.
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So they almost got the tank half-full? (Score:2)
For Boeing that's a milestone.
That thing won't ever fly.
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They see me rollin' (Score:2)
Not really surprising for NASA (Score:3)
Go Fever (Score:2)
All these problems make it obvious that they're rushing this program.
They've been working on this system in one form or another for only 18 short years. That's nowhere long enough to dot all of the Is and cross all of the Ts on such a big rocket.
I think that they need to stand down, take a few more years off, and go over everything with a fine-toothed comb until they make sure that every single component of this project is in tip-top condition.
Re:Go Fever (Score:4, Insightful)
Negative.
If you haven't noticed, the general approach to space flight between NASA and SpaceX is very different. We can oversimplify it and just state that NASA executes waterfall while SpaceX executes agile.
SpaceX has approached spaceflight with a childlike intrigue -- try, fail, change it and try again; just be sure to iterate as quickly as possible and learn something from every failure along the way.
NASA has a huge checklist with many boxes to tick for each milestone, making every accomplished stage gate a herculean effort to cross, and any failure is regarded as a waste of resources and penalized accordingly.
So yea, SpaceX was really a shit show in the early days. Their stuff tended to blow up on the pad -- often. Eventually, they got it to blow up during flight, then it stopped blowing up in flight and only blew up when trying to land, then it started to land successfully, and now they can eat every NASA contractor's lunch because they have the _only_ working and approved US based ISS mission capable platform.
Meanwhile, NASA is still super worried they might explode a test rocket, so they treat it like a baby, and yet they still seem to feel it would be super cool if that same test rocket eventually took real live humans into orbit.
If I were an astronaut today, I'd volunteer for SpaceX flights and tell NASA to shove their SLS right up their ass. But hey, that's just me.
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Negative. If you haven't noticed, the general approach to space flight between NASA and SpaceX is very different.
NASA funds SpaceX.
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Yes, that's a valid point. I suppose my grief is primarily aimed at the old-school engineering firms (Boeing, etc) that have been stringing NASA along lately on this SLS nonsense, and specifically with the SLS project management team.
Sunk Cost Syndrome is very real, and I wouldn't be shocked to find the political landscape only amplifies the problem. SLS needs to be canceled asap, and send the funding toward the funding of these private space platforms. If you _must_ insist on a government operated
Teething problems (Score:2)
This is the ground support equipment. They had the similar issues with the Saturn V (up to and including the first launch -- Apollo 4). In 1966, though, when they rolled out SA-500F, they had the Gemini and the first Saturn 1B launches to focus attention. It'll get fixed.
That said, I think that SLS is a ginormous boondoggle. As far as I know, only 4 will be built. I still wish the team success even so.
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That said, I think that SLS is a ginormous boondoggle. As far as I know, only 4 will be built. I still wish the team success even so.
I actually wish they would just admit defeat and simply fund Musk and Bezos to fight it out for the last scraps. The old tradition of relying on Boeing/Lockheed Martin/etc to bring the engineering heads to the table is proving nonfunctional today, and who could honestly be surprised by this anymore? Easy & fat contracts make for fat & lazy people -- meanwhile the private sector has scraped itself together into real powerhouses that are able to embarrass the old-hat engineering firms by demonstrating
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Loughhead Is Part of ULA (Score:2)
Does LMart play any role in the failures?
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ULA isn't in charge of SLS core stage. It's Boeing all the way.
raise your hand (Score:2)
All those willing to ride this rocket even to orbit, raise your hands. ...Hmm, I thought so.
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All those willing to ride this rocket even to orbit, raise your hands. ...Hmm, I thought so.
Yee Haw! My hand is up!
First one will probably be ok. It's the ones after that you have to watch for.