NASA Passes Go, Moves Toward Late August Artemis I Launch
NASA has decided that the Space Launch System (SLS) wet dress rehearsal earlier this week that ended prematurely was sufficient for the agency to move forward with having the giant rocket launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the moon later this summer.
“NASA has reviewed the data from the rehearsal and determined the testing campaign is complete. The agency will roll SLS and Orion back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy next week to prepare the rocket and spacecraft for launch and repair a leak detected during the most recent rehearsal. NASA plans to return SLS and Orion to the pad for launch in late August. NASA will set a specific target launch date after replacing hardware associated with the leak,” the space agency said in a press release.
Controllers were able to fuel both stages of the giant booster for the first time and take the countdown to T-29 seconds. A leak in a bleed line that takes hydrogen away from the rocket prevented controllers from taking the countdown to the planned T-9.3 seconds.
The Artemis I mission will be the maiden flight of SLS and the second flight of an automated Orion crew vehicle, which has been developed astronauts back to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The mission will extend from 26 days to 28 days, or 38 to 42 days, depending upon when the mission is launched. NASA has a launch window that extends from Aug. 23 until Sept. 6, excluding Aug. 30 through Sept. 1.
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT Friday, June 24, to discuss next steps for the Artemis I mission with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Audio of the call will livestream on NASA’s website.
NASA officials will discuss the outcome of the wet dress rehearsal, plans to return the rocket and spacecraft to the VAB, and repair the leak. Teleconference participants include:
- Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development, NASA Headquarters
- Phil Weber, senior technical integration manager, Exploration Ground Systems Program, NASA Kennedy
- John Blevins, chief engineer, Space Launch System Program, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
- Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager, Exploration Ground Systems Program, NASA Kennedy
Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone to send astronauts to Mars.
For updates, follow along on NASA’s Artemis blog at:
17 responses to “NASA Passes Go, Moves Toward Late August Artemis I Launch”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Well and good. But if they can’t complete the WDR fully over a period of months, what are the odds they can get it off the pad in August?
They need to get it flying soon as the SRBs already have a waiver for being stacked too long. Also there are limits on how often you are able to cycle the tanks before they become a flight risk. Than there is all of the exposure it has had to salt air…
Here’s wishing for a successful launch.
Fair question, especially as the wording was a bit ambiguous. ” NASA plans to return SLS and Orion to the pad for launch in late August.” One interpretation is that “late August” is just the timeframe by which the vehicle is to be rolled out to the pad. Another interpretation is that “late August” is the timeframe for the launch as well. We shall see what we shall see. But August coming and going with no launch would not surprise me.
It does sound like September-ish. We have ourselves a little race. Hopefully, the SpaceX Department of Historical Oddities is making good progress on that book report, though it would not surprise me to learn that Musk has taken on the project himself and it’s threatening to blossom into a six part miniseries. I heard Amazon has turned down the pilot on diversity grounds.
It’s 6-8 weeks of work in the VAB, starting July 1st with roll back from 39B
That translates to a rollout for launch sometime between August 13 to August 27
With about 10 days of preps prior to launch day on the pad that allows for a launch anywhere between August 23 through September 6
The last WDR would have reached 100% of their test objectives if they had not encoutered the hydrogen leak
Everything else seemed to go really well, nothing that would have stopped a real launch attempt.
Once they have it fixed in the VAB, it seems more likely than not that the next tanking will go all the way.
I think the odds of a good launch attempt next time around are honestly pretty good, lots of lessons learned from this final WDR attempt
You believe they would allow it to launch with a hydrogen leak at the pad? Maybe so – Delta-4 essentially douses itself in hydrogen at launch…
They didn’t say it. They declared it ready
I look forward to the launch
August? Wirh any kind of luck and some static fires Starship should be flying before then. Wouldn’t that be something?
It would be nice, and with some luck SpaceX will have the Starship tower done at Pad39A and be practicing stacking Starships.?
It would be great to see the world’s largest rocket next to the world’s third largest rocket…
Perhaps the tower will be complete by late August. But the Roberts Rd. Starship factory seems unlikely to be.
I think they may have some more problems along the way.
I don’t know why I believe this—but I have this hunch that both will launch on my birthday month of September…and that both will launch within hours of each other regardless….
My birthday month of October would come as no surprise for SLS, and I will be pleasantly surprised if Starshup/SuperHeavy flies by then.
They achieved 90% of their goals. I guess 90% is good enough for aerospace? I’m suspecting a couple of expensive scrubs will follow.
Hopefully not a post launch scrub. Things get ugly at +3 seconds.
The last WDR would have reached 100% of their test objectives if they had not encoutered the hydrogen leak
Once they have it fixed in the VAB, it seems more likely than not that the next tanking will go all the way.
I think the odds of a good launch attempt next time around are honestly pretty good, lots of lessons learned from this final attempt
Of course they could have more teething issues next time, but seeing the trend of the previous tanking tests, and how close they came this time I’m honestly pretty confident