{"id":17355,"date":"2022-08-30T19:21:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-reschedules-moon-rockets-launch-for-saturday-as-it-checks-data-from-first-try\/"},"modified":"2022-08-30T19:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:21:28","slug":"nasa-reschedules-moon-rockets-launch-for-saturday-as-it-checks-data-from-first-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-reschedules-moon-rockets-launch-for-saturday-as-it-checks-data-from-first-try\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA reschedules moon rocket\u2019s launch for Saturday as it checks data from first try"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A launch-pad screenshot shows the bottom of NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket, including the four RS-25 main engines on its core stage. (NASA via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One day after the first launch of NASA\u2019s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket had to be scrubbed due to an engine cool-down issue, mission managers announced that they\u2019d try again on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, engineers will work out the details of a go\/no-go plan, just in case they face issues similar to those that forced Monday\u2019s scrub. <\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s two-hour launch opportunity opens at 2:17 p.m. ET (11:17 a.m. PT) at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If all systems are go, liftoff would mark the beginning of NASA\u2019s Artemis 1 mission, an uncrewed test flight aimed at setting the stage for sending astronauts to the lunar surface in the mid-2020s. <\/p>\n

Some aspects of the countdown will be changed for Saturday\u2019s attempt. For example, mission managers are planning to conduct the engine cool-down procedure during an earlier stage of the fueling process. That procedure involves \u201cbleeding\u201d off some of the rocket\u2019s liquid hydrogen fuel to chill the core stage\u2019s four main engines to their desired temperature of 420 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

When the cool-down system was tested in March during a \u201cGreen Run\u201d at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, the procedure was conducted successfully, early in the fueling process. But when the hydrogen bleed occurred later in the countdown on Monday, a sensor indicated that one of the engines \u2014 engine No. 3 \u2014 wasn\u2019t cold enough.<\/p>\n

Mission managers decided to replicate the procedure used at Stennis.<\/p>\n

John Honeycutt, NASA\u2019s SLS program manager, suggested the problem might be with the sensor, rather than with the hydrogen bleed system itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the physics about how hydrogen performs,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThe way the sensor is behaving doesn\u2019t line up with the physics of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honeycutt said he and his team were working out a plan to verify that the engines are properly chilled, based on a wider range of data. He said the team preferred to avoid having to go into the rocket and work on the sensor directly, which might require rolling the rocket back from the launch pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I plan to do, with the help of the team, is put us in a situation that gets us the data we need to know that we\u2019ve got the engines chilled down appropriately and go fly, using the data that we\u2019ve got access to today,\u201d Honeycutt said.<\/p>\n

Engineers will also look into other concerns that cropped up during Monday\u2019s countdown \u2014 for example, a vent valve leak in the SLS\u2019s intertank region. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said that leak was apparently a consequence of the troubleshooting that was done on the hydrogen bleed system.<\/p>\n

Forecasters say there\u2019s a 40% chance of acceptable weather for launch on Saturday. If weather forces another postponement, Blackwell-Thompson said yet another attempt could be made on Monday, at the end of the Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n

For the Artemis 1 mission, the SLS rocket will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a test flight that loops around the moon and heads back to Earth for a Pacific Ocean splashdown. NASA\u2019s current plan calls for Artemis 2 to send a crewed Orion on a round-the-moon flight in 2024, and for Artemis 3 to carry astronauts to the lunar surface in the 2025-2026 time frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A launch-pad screenshot shows the bottom of NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket, including the four RS-25 main engines on its core stage. (NASA via YouTube) One day after the first launch of NASA\u2019s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket had to be scrubbed due to an engine cool-down issue, mission managers announced that they\u2019d try again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,625,190,640,4370,787],"class_list":["post-17355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-orion","tag-sls-rocket","tag-space-launch-system"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}