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Big Flying Rockets: Space Launches V


SpaceChampion
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Here at last, targeted for Monday August 29th, 2022 -- twelve years after first authorized, which was another five or six years of the Ares V rocket's troubled design development process, so about 18 years after it was decided a successor to the Space Shuttle was needed -- The Space (or Senate) Launch System's first orbital flight:  

Liftoff is scheduled during a two-hour launch window opening at 8:33 a.m. EDT / 12:33 UTC.  

Where to watch:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMLD0Lp0JBg

 

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The huge SLS rocket will launch from Launch Complex 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The four RS-25 main engines - all flight-approved during various Space Shuttle missions - will be assisted by two massive Solid Rocket Boosters during the first 132 seconds of flight.

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft is expected to reach the Moon on Saturday, where it will enter a Distant Retrograde Orbit. The capsule's return to Earth is currently scheduled for October 10th. While no human crew members will be onboard Orion, it will carry three manikins named Commander Moonikin Campos, Helga and Zohar - as well as a Shaun the Sheep doll!

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SLS will fly to the east as it sends Orion on its way to the moon. Weather permitting, the plume from the two solid rocket boosters should be visible from large portions of Florida. With more liftoff thrust than Saturn V, those near the Kennedy Space Center should expect an impressive launch experience.

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Secondary Payloads

Thirteen low-cost CubeSat missions were competitively selected as secondary payloads on the Artemis I test flight. They will reside within the second stage of the launch vehicle from which they will be deployed. Two CubeSats have been selected through NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership, three through the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, two through the Science Mission Directorate, and three were chosen from submissions by NASA's international partners. Only 10 spacecraft were ultimately installed in the stage adapter, the remaining ones having met schedule delays and missed the delivery date for integration.

The following spacecraft will be flying on Artemis 1:
- ArgoMoon
- BioSentinel
- CuSP
- EQUULEUS
- Lunar IceCube
- LunaH Map
- NEA Scout
- OMOTENASHI
- Skyfire
- Team Miles

These payloads were selected but missed integration and were re-manifested:
- Earth Escape Explorer
- Lunar Flashlight
- Cislunar Explorers
 

Payloads: 10
Heliocentric Orbit

 

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Is the SLS program on one of those cost-plus type contracts in which there is no incentive to get things done on time and on budget?  Actually it's probably worse, there is actually incentive to run up the costs and string things along as long as possible in these cost plus contracts, unless you have some sort of enforceable penalty.  I think the SLS program might be actually protected by law, which makes it extremely difficult to just cancel, if you wanted to get out.

Pretty sure they are already years behind schedule and many billions over budget, all without any significant consequence, so far.  If SpaceX can get Starship up and running soon, Congress should really consider amending the law so that the SLS contract isn't protected.  The cost per launch of SLS is ridiculous; it's several billion dollars per launch.  They really need some competition.

What is crazy is that we went to the moon over 50 years ago, with only the most basic types of computers.  I think computers were programmed with punch cards back then.  Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others have been in this business for many decades, yet just doing the same thing that was done 50 years ago is a monumental task for them.

Compare this to what SpaceX has done over the past 10-20 years, starting from nothing.  They, and some of the other newer private companies, are finally advancing the space industry again.

Going back to the SLS launch, I'm very pessimistic that the problem can be fixed in time for the next couple launch windows, which are all coming up soon.  Are they really going to risk a $3-4 billion dollar rocket right now?  I'm expecting them to roll the rocket back to the hanger.  An explosion and loss of the rocket would probably be enough for Congress to amend the law and open up the contract, if another company like SpaceX can demonstrate the required capability soon.

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2 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Is the SLS program on one of those cost-plus type contracts in which there is no incentive to get things done on time and on budget? Actually it's probably worse, there is actually incentive to run up the costs and string things along as long as possible in these cost plus contracts, unless you have some sort of enforceable penalty.  I think the SLS program might be actually protected by law, which makes it extremely difficult to just cancel, if you wanted to get out.

Pretty much that, yes.  That's not to say nobody tried to do otherwise, but the forces at play (driven by money and politics) deliberately squashed any attempt to do otherwise.  For example, when Obama/Biden was trying to redirect NASA along a sensible direction to invent technology to enable anything that the U.S. would want to do afterwards, whether that is Moon or Mars or asteroids, it included the key technology of fuel depots.  I think Lockheed even lobbied for that. 

But Senator Shelby myopically saw that as a threat to entrenched interests comprising the Space Shuttle workforce (which included the space operations side of Lockheed itself, ironically) because doing things differently would require a shift in the power and money balance.

So Shelby legislatively banned NASA from working on fuel depots.  Informally there were banned from even saying the words "fuel depot".  As the Senate responded to the Obama/Biden plan for NASA's future, they invented the SLS and directed NASA to use legacy Shuttle technology, similar to the cancelled and overbudget Ares V program.

Congress couldn't do anything about SpaceX though.  So now that SpaceX made fuel depots part of its system for getting crew to the Moon in the Artemis program, NASA can suddenly say "fuel depot" again.

 

 

 

Edited by SpaceChampion
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Looks like they are going to give it another go on Saturday.  Apparently, instead of fixing the cooling system malfunction, they are going to try using a workaround procedure in order to cool down the engine to the appropriate temperature.  They are just going to start cooling the problem engine earlier and hope that they can reach the right temperature.  Theoretically, it could work.  Not sure how much testing they've done to determine whether their proposed procedure change will work, but if they are sure that the cooling problem won't affect anything else once the engines are fired up, then it's worth a shot.

I have no idea how critical it is to properly cool the engines before ignition.  The stated rationale is to prevent temperature shock to the engine.  Is this something that could actually cause catastrophic engine failure?  Or cause enough of a performance problem later on that it jeopardizes the mission? 

Despite my last post, I hope the launch succeeds.  Any failure at this point, particularly a catastrophic failure, would set the program back years.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The capsule's escape systems worked, at least, so if it had humans riding they would have survived fine.

Meanwhile Blue Origin still hasn't delivered the BE-4 engines to ULA for integrating with the Vulcan rocket.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/as-summer-turns-to-fall-ula-still-waiting-for-its-be-4-rocket-engines/

Firefly scrubbed a launch on the weekend, will try again next week.

 

And the CEO of Ariane Group, an entirely subsidized consortium providing European launchers, is crying about European start-ups being providing a piddling amount of subsidies to try building cheaper rockets that couldn't even compete with them as they're microlaunchers.

 

Edited by SpaceChampion
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Sadly, Masten Space Systems, one of the pioneers of the New Space movement, filed for bankruptcy and is selling off its assets.

They were the unexpected winner of the Grumman Lunar Lander X-Prize so surprising they didn't go on to win the Google Lunar XPrize to actually land on the Moon.  No one did, and that prize ended without being claimed, though the Israeli effort SpaceIL actually managed to crash on the moon more than a year after the competition ended.

 

Edited by SpaceChampion
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8 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Yeah, Bezos has enough money to keep Blue Origin going for decades.  I'm sure they'll eventually get the New Glenn operational.  Maybe in a couple years or so.

They'd better be a bit faster. ULA relies on those rocket engines for their Vulcan.

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8 hours ago, Loge said:

They'd better be a bit faster. ULA relies on those rocket engines for their Vulcan.

True, and they have customers for the first two payload-carrying flights to fulfill NASA contracts:  (1) the Peregrine moon lander, by Astrobotic, to deliver cargo to the Moon for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract, to the Lactis Mortis region of north-eastern hemisphere on the Lunar Near side; and (2) the first of six Dreamchaser mini-shuttle launches, by Sierra Space, for fulfillment of the CRS-2 commercial resupply for the ISS. 

Continuing to delay delivery of the engines will become a problem for a lot of stakeholders downstream.

 

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On 9/14/2022 at 12:10 AM, Loge said:

They'd better be a bit faster. ULA relies on those rocket engines for their Vulcan.

seems very likely that those engines are going to be really late and the missions that rely on them will be delayed. not sure if those contracts can be cancelled and if there are any viable alternatives. if these engines fall under the congressionally protected contracts, there is potentially very little that can be done if blue origin is late and/or runs up the cost. 

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