NASA’s New Moon Rocket Rolls Out to the Launch Pad
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA’s mega-Moon rocket continues its four-mile journey to the launch pad after leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building after a planned stop to adjust the Crew Access Arm. Traveling at a top speed of .82 mph, the crawler-transporter with the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft atop the mobile launcher is on its way to Launch Complex 39B.
Once at the launch pad, the team will begin final preparations ahead of the wet dress rehearsal test. The rehearsal at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will run the Artemis I launch team through operations to load propellant into the rocket’s tanks, conduct a full launch countdown, demonstrate the ability to recycle the countdown clock, and also drain the tanks to give them an opportunity to practice the timelines and procedures they will use for launch.
During the approximately two-day test, teams will start by activating the facilities needed for launch and formally beginning the countdown sequence. Team will staff the Launch Control Center at Kennedy and connect with staff in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Space Force Eastern Range, and the SLS Engineering Support Center at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Launch controllers will power on different rocket and spacecraft systems, along with ground support equipment.
Teams will then load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic, or super cold, propellants including liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the rocket at the launch pad on the mobile launcher according to the detailed timeline they will use on the actual launch day. They will practice every phase of the countdown, including weather briefings, pre-planned holds in the countdown, conditioning and replenishing the propellants as needed, and validation checks.
During the wet dress rehearsal, once launch controllers reach the point just before the rocket’s RS-25 engines will ignite on launch day, they will recycle back to the T-10 minute point, and then resume the countdown once more after a hold. The team will then deliberately halt the countdown at about 10 seconds before the simulated liftoff to demonstrate stopping a launch and draining the propellants from the rocket. Sometimes called a “scrub,” launch controllers may decide not to proceed with launch if a technical or weather issue arises during or prior to the countdown, so demonstrating the ability to remove propellants will ensure teams are prepared for various launch day scenarios.
Several days after the wet dress rehearsal, the integrated rocket and spacecraft will be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). In the VAB, technicians will extend platforms to reestablish access to several parts of the rocket and spacecraft. They will remove sensors specifically used for monitoring during the wet dress rehearsal, charge Orion and other system batteries, stow late-load cargo into Orion, and run final checkouts on several elements, among other tasks. Orion and SLS will roll to the launch pad for a final time about a week before launch.
NASA will review data from the rehearsal before setting a specific target launch date for the Artemis I launch. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond prior to the first flight with crew on Artemis II.
14 responses to “NASA’s New Moon Rocket Rolls Out to the Launch Pad”
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good luck. I dont think it will have a long lifetime we will see
I also posted this on spacenews: I have to believe that at some point in the near future climate change is going to become the big issue for the human race. It will also become clear that it will be necessary to provide a western standard of living for a population of close to 10 billion. And the third step will be the determination that there is only one possible solution: Space Solar Power by way of Lunar Resources. When this happens, everything will suddenly be about Super Heavy Lift Vehicles sending payloads to the Moon. And we only have one. As for the other one, I also foresee Starlink failing which means Starship is not going to be around.
The boosters will be replaced with more powerful liquid reusables. The RS-25’s will be mounted on a module with a heat shield and be recovered for reuse. And since it will likely double its flight rate every couple years, that will drive costs down.
I “hope” you are correct. I like the idea of solar power stations myself. I hope you are correct there. I tend to agree with you on starlink. but I hope I am wrong.
I really do hope you are correct about the solar power stations. we have a now 140 KW solar farm works great
I really do see resemblances in the Starlink situation with Enron. The smartest guys in the room did build some giant natural gas facilities overseas as I recall but….that was when reality started to catch up to all their schemes. Those facilities did not get completed as far as I know, and Enron blundered on for awhile till a certain female finance journalist asked some inconvenient questions and that single media exposure was the straw that would break Kevin Lay’s back and it all started to fall apart.
I am biased though. All the abuse I have suffered at the hands of the fanboys over the years has done it to me. It is my fault, I know, for letting it happen. I am just stubborn.
its hard for me to judge if Starlink will be successful or not in terms of exact figures. one has no idea how much of this is powered by Musk personal money and in stock he has a lot of it
My “angst” is that 1) I dont see how the market is there 2) the cost of deployment seem high and 3) it just rolls down to what the cost of service is
in a perfect world he would probably be successful…but the world is not perfect. take India for example. he tried and failed to get into that market at least once…because he didnt quite recognize how many “gratiuties” are necessary 🙂 so I dont know how he penetrats that market…and if he does what he can charge. same in the US. how many rural folks are there who cannot get fiber and need fast internet? whats the money balance. 30K satellites seems a lot. its 10 times what he has now.
I just seem to think its a bridge to far. but its his money 🙂
I like solar power stations. I hope one day that flies
From what I understand, the more users, the more satellites are required to keep the speeds up. And with over 40,000 up, which is an absolutely ridiculous number, a constant flow of them are going to have to go up while an equal number de-orbit and burn up as their service life ends.
Half the planet does not really have any customers, the other half that has some percentage of the population with the money to pay for it mostly live near cable internet which will always be more dependable and less trouble. And the rest of human race is far more concerned with clean water, food, safe housing, and medicine. Low latency for video gaming is low on their list of priorities. They can’t pay.
So….I don’t get it. Unless it is some kind of James Bond movie plot.
It smells like Enron to me.
it could be
No.
Your inability to see space-related markets is already notorious – so no surprise you can’t see this one either.
I recall two decades ago the same things now being said about affordability of Starlink in the poorer parts of the world were being said about cell phone service in those same places. There are quite a few nations with low average family incomes that are quite interested in Starlink. The biggest is Indonesia.
The number of people in the U.S. living in rural areas with no good Internet access before Starlink is in the millions. And with more and more people fleeing dystopian Democrat-run large cities to ply their do-it-from-anywhere occupations well away from rampant woke craziness, the market is growing.
“…affordability of Starlink in the poorer parts of the world were being said about cell phone service in those same places.”…
I’ll never forget being in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania for the 1999 total solar eclipse. I was walking through the central open-air market one day. The watermelon vendor interrupted a sale to answer his cell phone. This was 2-3 years before I even had a cell phone.
That said, I don’t see him paying the same for internet service as is being charged in the US for StarLink…
Your vision, as usual, is seriously deficient.
Enron was pretty much a high-stakes game of Three-Card Monte. It didn’t make any energy, it just played financial games with chits representing energy made by others. That’s why no one’s lights went out when Enron came a-cropper.
Starlink provides an actual service which it also builds all the infrastructure for. There’s no similarity to Enron at all.
Lovely rocket
Rather dated-looking I’d say. And very patchy on the exterior. It hasn’t even flown yet, and won’t be reusable, but it already looks like it’s had a hard life. Falcon 9’s have to fly a few times before they get to looking that frowsy.
Worry lines