NASA Working To Repair Fuel Leak On Moon Rocket, Plans To Launch Artemis Mission Later This Month (cnbc.com) 37
NASA said Thursday that it is working to fix the issues that delayed the launch of its Artemis I moon rocket last week, and that it hopes to make another attempt later this month. CNBC reports: The space agency on Sept. 3 called off the second attempt to launch the mission after detecting a hydrogen leak as the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was being fueled. The Artemis I mission represents the debut of the SLS rocket and the uncrewed Orion capsule it is carrying, for what is expected to be a more than month-long journey around the moon. NASA made several unsuccessful attempts during the launch countdown on Saturday to fix the leak.
During a press conference on Thursday, NASA officials said work at the launchpad is ongoing, with the agency's team aiming to complete the replacement of seals on the fueling system by the end of the day. NASA then hopes to conduct a tanking demonstration on Sept. 17 to verify the replacement work was successful. Assuming the work and testing are completed by then, NASA has requested new launch dates from the U.S. Space Force's Eastern Range -- which reviews and approves all missions that liftoff from Cape Canaveral region. The agency has asked to make launch attempts on Sept. 23 and Sept. 27.
During a press conference on Thursday, NASA officials said work at the launchpad is ongoing, with the agency's team aiming to complete the replacement of seals on the fueling system by the end of the day. NASA then hopes to conduct a tanking demonstration on Sept. 17 to verify the replacement work was successful. Assuming the work and testing are completed by then, NASA has requested new launch dates from the U.S. Space Force's Eastern Range -- which reviews and approves all missions that liftoff from Cape Canaveral region. The agency has asked to make launch attempts on Sept. 23 and Sept. 27.
Let's (Score:1, Troll)
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Scrap that boondoggle
Not yet. Despite the terrible politics and waste of money, the doomed SLS is still a thing of beauty. Like the Soviet Buran/Energia, let it complete one demonstration in honour of the thousands of people who devoted years of effort to it. Maybe even a second, manned SLS mission.
Meanwhile, the Block 1B should be immediately cancelled, along with the disastrous mobile launch platform it requires.
https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Let's (Score:4, Interesting)
let it complete one demonstration in honour of the thousands of people who devoted years of effort to it.
The people who devoted years of their lives to such an obvious waste of tax dollars deserve no honor. The SLS program should have been killed long ago.
SpaceX StarShip costs $2M per launch with a 150-tonne payload.
SLS costs $1B per launch with a 70-tonne payload. That is a THOUSAND TIMES as expensive per tonne.
The only good thing about the SLS is that it is a perfect example of government mismanagement, incompetence, bureaucratic inertia, and complete inability to comprehend the sunk-cost fallacy. Advocates of limited government can use it as the "go-to" example for many years.
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Ok, now let's compare orbits achieved. Becausae I can transport way, way more stuff way, way cheaper from the grocery to home than any plane in existence from Sydney to London.
Re: Let's (Score:5, Funny)
Let's get the fucking hooptie off the launch pad first
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SpaceX StarShip costs $2M per launch with a 150-tonne payload.
Aspirationally!
It looks like they are now building a disposable upper stage, to get starlink 2 in orbit ASAP. Even if $100B per launch, it will be a lot better than SLS.
Lunar starship will have to wait for reusable Starship tankers, and orbital refuelling though. But worth it. I'm hoping for a 2030 unmanned lunar landing attempt.
Re:Let's (Score:4, Insightful)
The only good thing about the SLS is that it is a perfect example of government mismanagement, incompetence, bureaucratic inertia, and complete inability to comprehend the sunk-cost fallacy
The thing is the SLS project has been something that Congressional members have change direction, then changed again, then changed once more, only to then change again followed by changing it once more. Because the SLS contract jobs equals money for the people that will vote for them. This isn't government mismanagement it's how democracy works, you're literally pointing out a flaw of how our entire government works at every level Federal, State, and Local. And more so a problem of just everyday citizens, they are fickle sons of bitches.
All in all, I squarely blame the public for the majority of the SLS mishandling and the voting public wants exactly this kind of "incompetence" because for some it means money in the their pocket. We have bred a public that hungers for scraps, we should not be surprised when the public pulls at every single possible project to tatters. You indicate that this is a problem, no, this is the system working as intended.
Advocates of limited government can use it as the "go-to" example for many years
The catch is, doing the "small government" means doubling down on exactly the begging for scraps that got us into this place. Moving things to private corporations doesn't suddenly lift up the people, it just means more of the dollars go into the pocket of the one person at the top. Every time I've seen the call for limited government, it is always for something that will inevitably make the situation much worse and make the few projects that are government controlled when worse mismanagement case studies.
What we should be doing is setting a ten to fifteen year project goal, outline the steps to get there, and have hard and enforceable deadlines backed by law. Putting everything into private hands is an absolutely horrible idea because the problem isn't hitting some made up goal, it's not leaving the public to fight like dogs for the small dollars that are being offered. If we actually have citizens that care about things for longer than fifteen minutes, the rest is actually going to start mending itself. Not overnight, but eventually.
It is the citizens of the United States that are the fucked up part in all of this. For too long they have had to dog eat dog and at this point this is all they pretty much know and now espouse that as a means of getting public projects done. That's how messed up it is, there isn't a common good in America, it's just who has the best contract.
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Despite the terrible politics and waste of money, the doomed SLS is still a thing of beauty.
What? It's a fucking pointy can. The only thing worse than spending all this money on it as a jobs program which also hands shitpots of money to fuckfaces (there's always intentional graft) is spending more money on it when we don't actually need it.
SLS was a shit plan from the beginning. It would have made more sense just to pay the people it employed without doing anything, and spend the rest of the money making the world better somehow, which SLS won't do. It's going to fly once or twice, and waste a bun
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Yes, it's awful. The government corruption stinks. You need electoral reform for a start, e.g. optional preferential voting.
But the money is spent.
Re: Let's (Score:2)
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IIRC Obama tried, and for a short time, succeeded.
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IIRC Obama tried, and for a short time, succeeded.
SLS is exactly what Obama used to proudly call a "shovel-ready project."
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Scrap that boondoggle
We may end up doing exactly that, but this particular launch is a sunk cost. Let's learn from it what we can, even if that is nothing but "Pulling old Shuttle parts out of storage is not the way to save money on launches."
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What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:3)
If it's not seals at launch time, it's alligators at landing time.... :-D
Re:What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a challenging engineering problem, not just for NASA. When you're the size of a hydrogen molecule most matter looks like fishnet to you. Ars Technica had something good recently about how hard it is to make a quick-disconnect both able to disconnect quickly and tight enough to contain hydrogen.
Re:What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA suffered problems with hydrogen in the Shuttle for years and never quite solved it.
It is no accident that all designs since have avoided hydrogen, despite the higher efficiency (Isp).
Sadly, SLS is stuck in the past for political (pork barrel) reasons.
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Re:What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't about saving money. It is about providing jobs for key districts. The overall parts list was spelled out by congress and NASA was left to fill in the details.
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True, but also incomplete.
NASA, on purpose, spread out the production of those components to as many states as possible, to make sure that any talk about canceling things would affect as many Senators as possible.
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United Launch Alliance, on purpose, spread out the production of those components to as many states as possible, to make sure that any talk about canceling things would affect as many Senators as possible.
FTFY
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Nah. This started the moment they sent anything into space :P It's not something as recent as the ULA. They just continued the practice.
Re: What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:1)
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The idea was to avoid making new mistakes by repeating old mistakes instead.
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Well, it's a little worse than that. Management and Engineering didn't make the decisions; Congress did. Yup, when they provided money for SLS they wrote into law that it would be based on the Shuttle engines and solid rocket boosters. By doing so, they forced the choice of Hydrogen as a fuel because that's what the engines wanted to see.
Of course, that doesn't explain why, 60 years later, a moon landing is going to require TWO rockets larger than the Saturn-V, and anywhere between half-a-dozen and a d
Re: What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:2)
There is no money to be saved by management. If itâ(TM)s more expensive then the government will pay more, which means more profit.
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Yeah, they should switch from seals to walrusses. They are way more reliable and less prone to clubbing.
Re: What is it about NASA and seals? (Score:1)
Cursed or unlucky? (Score:2)
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Name in the headlines (Score:2)