{"id":18964,"date":"2017-05-12T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T11:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-decides-against-putting-crew-on-first-sls-rocket-launch-now-delayed-to-2019\/"},"modified":"2017-05-12T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T11:20:07","slug":"nasa-decides-against-putting-crew-on-first-sls-rocket-launch-now-delayed-to-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-decides-against-putting-crew-on-first-sls-rocket-launch-now-delayed-to-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA decides against putting crew on first SLS rocket launch, now delayed to 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_332138\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-332138\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-332138\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/170512-em-1-630x474.jpg\" alt=\"NASA Orion and SLS\" width=\"630\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/170512-em-1-630x474.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/170512-em-1-768x578.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/170512-em-1-1260x949.jpg 1260w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-332138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s view shows NASA\u2019s Space Launch System launching&nbsp;an Orion capsule. (NASA Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NASA has broken the news to the White House and the world that speeding up the first crewed flight of its exploration launch system wouldn\u2019t be worth the added cost and risk.<\/p>\n<p>That means the first launch of NASA\u2019s heavy-lift Space Launch System will fly without astronauts, as originally planned. And&nbsp;it will fly later than planned: NASA officials said today that liftoff will have to be delayed to 2019, although it\u2019s too early to be more precise about the time frame.<\/p>\n<p>The determination comes after weeks of discussions focusing on whether the flight plan for what\u2019s known as Exploration Mission 1, or EM-1, could be tweaked to put people on board. Such a scenario would give the White House more to celebrate in President Donald Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe decided that while it\u2019s technically feasible \u2026 the baseline plan that we had in place was the best way for us to go,\u201d Robert Lightfoot, NASA\u2019s acting administrator, told reporters today during a teleconference.<\/p>\n<p>The baseline plan calls for using the Space Launch System, or SLS, to power&nbsp;an uncrewed Orion capsule beyond Earth orbit, into a wide retrograde orbit around the moon. The Orion capsule would return to Earth for a splashdown about three weeks after launch.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"A Visual Journey: NASA\u2019s Exploration Mission-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Mo8IkHM8fGE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA\u2019s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said reworking EM-1 to fly a crew would have cost an additional $600 million to $900 million, depending on how much more redesign and testing NASA decided to do.<\/p>\n<p>Other issues are already&nbsp;likely to add to the cost and schedule challenges facing the mission, he said. For example, NASA\u2019s European partners are behind schedule on building the service module for the Orion deep-space capsule that would be launched by the SLS.<\/p>\n<p>The damage done to NASA\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana by a tornado in February was another \u201cunfortunate\u201d turn of events for the program, Gerstenmaier said. And most recently, a liquid-oxygen tank that would have been used for structural tests of the SLS was damaged beyond repair when it was dropped at Michoud this month.<\/p>\n<p>All those factors suggest that an uncrewed EM-1 mission, which had been scheduled for late 2018, will slip into 2019, Gerstenmaier said. He said a more precise date would be determined in a month or so.<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot said adding a crew would have meant further delays, most likely to 2020, and might have required the redesign of Orion\u2019s heat shield and other components for EM-1.<\/p>\n<p>Changing the flight plan would also mean there\u2019d be people aboard for the first test of a totally new type of launch vehicle, which NASA has done only once before&nbsp;\u2013 on the space shuttle Columbia in 1981.<\/p>\n<p>Gerstenmaier said that the delays to date are \u201ctypical of almost any major development of this complexity,\u201d but that the additional complexity of putting a crew on board would push the cost and risk beyond where NASA thought it was prudent to go.<\/p>\n<p>As it is, the delays for EM-1 will probably trigger delays for Exploration Mission 2, the first Orion-SLS mission that\u2019s meant to carry crew. That mission is currently set for the summer of 2021, but Gerstenmaier said the schedule will be reassessed in light of EM-1\u2019s likely postponement.<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot said that the question about putting people on EM-1 was originally raised by Trump\u2019s NASA transition team, and that the White House concurred with the decision that was made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would say we made it together,\u201d Lightfoot recalled. \u201cWe didn\u2019t throw it over the fence, and they didn\u2019t throw it back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Phil Larson \u2013 who previously served as an Obama administration official and a SpaceX spokesman, and now works at the University of Colorado at Boulder \u2013&nbsp;said the decision was no surprise. \u201cUnfortunate, but not shocked,\u201d he said in a tweet.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"SpaceX Is Sending People to the Moon!\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lCCKdcL_h3Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Commercial space ventures such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have offered to make their heavy-lift launch vehicles, currently under development, available to NASA for missions to the moon and its vicinity.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, went so far as to invite NASA to use a Falcon Heavy for a round-the-moon mission. That offer came&nbsp;in February, when Musk announced that two private passengers have signed up to go on such a mission as early as next year.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX and Boeing are working on commercial space taxis that could start making trips to and from the International Space Station in 2018 or so. And SpaceX is planning one or two robotic missions to Mars in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Gerstenmaier and Lightfoot insisted that NASA would continue with the multibillion-dollar development program for Orion and SLS, rather than throwing in the towel and relying exclusively on commercial launch services for flights beyond Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>They pointed out that Orion and SLS are meant to be the first pieces of a space infrastructure that can deliver travelers and payloads beyond Earth orbit to lunar orbit, to the moon\u2019s surface, to Mars and its moons, and onward to farther-out destinations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking for a sustainable program here \u2013 more than just one mission,\u201d Lightfoot&nbsp;said.<\/p>\n<p>But Lightfoot&nbsp;left the door open for private-sector space exploration as well. \u201cThis is an \u2018and\u2019 proposition,\u201d he&nbsp;said. \u201cThis is not an \u2018or.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot also cleared up a question that Trump left hanging in the air during a space-to-ground chat a couple of weeks ago, when the president said he wanted to see humans going to Mars \u201cduring my first term, or at worst during my second term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Does that mean White House officials want NASA to speed up its plan to send astronauts to Mars and its moons in the 2030s?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve asked us to look at the plan that we\u2019ve got today, and see if we can keep going on that plan,\u201d Lightfoot said. \u201cThey have not asked us to go to Mars by 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s view shows NASA\u2019s Space Launch System launching&nbsp;an Orion capsule. (NASA Illustration) NASA has broken the news to the White House and the world that speeding up the first crewed flight of its exploration launch system wouldn\u2019t be worth the added cost and risk. That means the first launch of NASA\u2019s heavy-lift Space Launch [&hellip;]<\/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":[3718,190,640,4370],"class_list":["post-18964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-em-1","tag-nasa","tag-orion","tag-sls-rocket"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18964"}],"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=18964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}