Artemis 1 scrubbed. Next possible launch September 2

By Spacephototshirts

Artemis 1 launch scrubbed due to fuel problem

An issue with temperature conditioning on one of the three main booster engines for the mighty SLS rocket has forced an end today’s Artemis 1 launch attempt. In case you haven’t been following it … Artemis 1 is the first of three missions planned to send humans back to the moon by the middle of this decade. And wow! It’s exciting. The next launch window will open at 12:48 p.m. ET (16:48 UTC) on Friday, September 2, 2022. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson made the call to scrub the mission at just after 8:30 a.m. ET today, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, following repeated attempts by technicians to fix the issue.

Artemis 1 has all the dazzle of the earlier race to the moon in the 1960s … a giant rocket, with powerful thrust … an unmatched element of daring. It’s a big understaking. So it’s no surprise we didn’t launch on August 29. There are two alternate launch dates in the first week of September: the 1st and the 5th.

And, of course, spaceflight fans were disappointed. But many tempered their upset with good humor:

Here’s what happened

While the countdown was at a T-40 minute hold, the engineering team asked for additional time to continue working on a fix. Here’s what NASA said was going on:

While liquid oxygen loading into the interim cryogenic propulsion stage continues and core stage tanks continue to be replenished with propellants, engineers are troubleshooting an issue conditioning one of the RS-25 engines (engine 3) on the bottom of the core stage. Launch controllers condition the engines by increasing pressure on the core stage tanks to bleed some of the cryogenic propellant to the engines to get them to the proper temperature range to start them. Engine 3 is not properly being conditioned through the bleed process, and engineers are troubleshooting.

There also appeared to be a worrying crack in the thermal protection system on a flange of the core stage booster. However, NASA now says there is no crack in the booster itself, and fuel vapors venting through the thermal protection layer caused the issue. A similar issue was seen during the space shuttle era, and it did not affect flight safety.

Get updates on Artemis 1 via NASA’s Artemis blog

View larger. | A golden sunrise surrounds NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, poised on the pad at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Artemis 1 will mark the dawn of a new era in space exploration. By the way, that rocket stands taller than a 30-story building! Image via ESA/ NASA/ Ben Smegelsky.

What Artemis 1 will do

Artemis 1’s objective is partly to test SLS, a vehicle comparable to the great Saturn V that carried the first astronauts to the moon in the Apollo program of the ’60s and ’70s.

SLS – the world’s tallest rocket – is far more advanced than the Saturn V, technologically. But its main purpose is thrust. SLS will produce 8.8 million pounds (3.9 million kg) of thrust during liftoff and ascent, 15% more than the Saturn V. It’ll need that much thrust to loft a vehicle weighing nearly 6 million pounds (2.7 million kg) to orbit. Propelled by a pair of five segment boosters and four RS-25 engines, the rocket will reach the period of greatest atmospheric force within 90 seconds, NASA says. After jettisoning its boosters, service module panels, and launch abort system, the core stage engines will shut down. At that point, the core stage will separate from the Orion spacecraft.

The Orion moonship is known officially as the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV. It’ll go to Earth orbit atop of SLS following launch. There, it’ll deploy its solar arrays and the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) that’ll give the craft the big push needed to leave Earth’s orbit and travel toward the moon.

Orion already underwent an Earth-orbiting test in 2014, so this isn’t its first voyage to space. But it is its first trip to the moon, and it’ll get there via propulsion by a service module provided by the European Space Agency. The service module will supply the spacecraft’s main propulsion system and power (as well as house air and water for astronauts on future missions).

Orion will fly as close to the moon’s surface as about 62 miles (100 km). It’ll use the moon’s gravity to propel itself into an orbit about 40,000 miles (70,000 km) from the moon.

The spacecraft will stay in that orbit for about six days, collecting data. During that time, mission controllers will assess its performance. Then it’ll perform a second close flyby of the moon, coming within about 60 miles (100 km). Another precisely timed engine firing of the European-provided service module – in combination with the moon’s gravity – will accelerate the moonship back toward Earth. It’ll enter our planet’s atmosphere traveling at 25,000 mph (11 km/second), producing temperatures of approximately 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). So it’ll go faster – and get hotter – than during its 2014 flight test.

In all, the mission will last about a month and travel a distance of 1.3 million miles. It’s expected to make a precision landing within eyesight of the recovery ship off the coast of Baja, California.

Diagram: the sections of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft spread out, with labels.
View larger. | Components of the Space Launch System (SLS rocket) and Orion crew vehicle. Image via NASA/ SpacePolicyOnline.
Breakdown of Orion, a long white cylinder, with parts labeled.
Orion’s crew, command and service modules, as of June 2022. Image via Royal Museums Greenwich.

The roll-out of of SLS and Orion

NASA technicians rolled the SLS out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 16, several days ahead of schedule. NASA seems as eager as the rest of us to get its mighty SLS off the ground. The rollout took 10 hours and 8 minutes, while the moon rocket crept along at a maximum speed of 0.8 mph (1.3 kph) to the launch pad. Watch in the video below.

Night scene of Artemis 1: Huge building on left, rocket with gantry tower on right, all brightly lit.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Our friend Graham Smith captured this image of the Artemis 1 moonship atop the crawler that moved it to the launch pad on its August 16 rollout at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He captioned it: “The world’s most powerful rocket Artemis sits atop the crawler (powered by 8 diesel locomotive engines) as it emerges from the VAB [Vehicle Assembly Building] bound for its launch date of August 29 at 8:33 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 39B.” World’s tallest rocket!

What’s in the crew capsule?

The Orion moonship won’t have a human crew during Artemis 1. Instead, the commander’s seat of the ship will be occupied by a mannequin dressed in a bright orange spacesuit known as the Orion Crew Survival System. NASA says the special suit is:

… designed for a custom fit and equipped with technology features to help protect astronauts on launch day, in emergency situations, throughout high-risk parts of missions near the moon, and during the high-speed return to Earth.

In addition, there will be two other “passengers,” two identical mannequin torsos equipped with radiation detectors. The Israel Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center designed this part of the mission. It’s an experiment to test the AstroRad radiation protection vest, which will provide data on radiation levels.

The mannequin and mannequin torsos will be strapped in. But NASA is also flying a “zero gravity indicator” in the form of a Snoopy cuddly toy, also dressed in an iconic orange NASA jumpsuit. The comic-book character Snoopy was a household name in the 1960s and ’70s, when the Apollo missions were flying. And Apollo 10 astronauts traveled to the moon for a final checkout, prior to the first human moon landing with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. Apollo 10 skimmed to within 50,000 feet of the moon’s surface, to “snoop around” (scout the Apollo 11 landing site). So the crew named its lunar module “Snoopy.”

A seated orange-suited mannequin with space helmet on, with a belt and wires around.
Meet Commander Moonikin Campos, the mannequin that’ll sit in the commander’s seat aboard the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis 1 mission. The mannequin is named for Arturo Campos, who was a key player in bringing Apollo 13 safely back to Earth in 1970. Image via NASA.
2 human torso mannequins, with instruments strapped on them.
During NASA’s Artemis I mission, two identical ‘phantom’ torsos named Helga and Zohar will be equipped with radiation detectors while flying aboard Orion. They will measure the effects of radiation in space and test for protection with Zohar wearing a vest, while Helga will not. Image via StemRad/ NASA.
Black and white stuffed toy dog with orange jumpsuit.
View larger. | Snoopy will be the zero G indicator on the Artemis 1 flight. Image via NASA.

There have been delays

Many earthly spacecraft have visited the moon, but it has been 50 years since humans have walked its surface. And space visionaries have been dreaming for decades of a return to the moon. Although NASA first announced the Artemis program in December 2017, the development of the Orion crew capsule and the powerful SLS began earlier, in 2011. SpacePolicyOnline reported on March 14, 2022:

The first flight of SLS/ Orion has been delayed again and again. In 2014, NASA committed to the first launch in November 2018. That slipped to December 2019-June 2020, then to mid-late 2021 and then to 2022. Now, at long last, they are almost ready to take flight.

Read more SLS/ Orion history at SpacePolicyOnline, if you’re interested.

Top of orange rocket next to gantry tower, plus the white Orion space capsule on top.
Artemis 1 is the 1st of 3 new NASA moon missions aimed at sending humans back to the moon by the middle of this decade. Artemis 1 will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft (the white capsule shown here) around the moon, via a mighty moon rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS). The launch is currently scheduled for August 29 from Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image via NASASpaceflight.com.

A return to the moon

Ultimately, the Artemis program aims to send the first humans back to the moon by the middle of this decade. When they go, they’ll be aiming for the moon’s south pole, a place that scientists have discovered in recent decades has large amounts of water ice. Water contains oxygen, so processing it will make it possible for future astronauts to stay longer.

Someday, visionaries still hope, we will have a permanent presence on the moon. And we will go to Mars.

Such dreams are an integral part of humanity’s natural wanderlust in the 21st century. And so future historians might look back at our time – and at the Artemis missions – as the moment humanity took a true giant leap to space, maybe this time for good.

Get a visual of what Artemis will be doing

Map showing Artemis's path around the moon and what it will be doing.
View larger. | Take a closer look at what Artemis 1 will be up to on its mission. Image via NASA.

Bottom line: The August 29, 2022, attempt to launch Artemis 1 – the 1st step in a human return to the moon – has been scrubbed. Next launch window opens September 2.

Via NASA

The post Artemis 1 scrubbed. Next possible launch September 2 first appeared on EarthSky.

Posted in Space