Sidereal Messenger: LIVE: Launch of the Artemis 1 lunar mission

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This Wednesday (16), NASA makes its third attempt to launch the Artemis 1 mission, the first flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion capsule, destined to take humans back to the Moon. The window of opportunity for the launch, which in this test will not have a crew, opens at 3:04 am (GMT) and lasts for two hours. Follow live with Sidereal Messengerstarting at 2:30 am, in the video below.

The countdown began just over 48 hours before liftoff, which is due to take place on platform 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vehicle preparation procedures went smoothly until the completion of the first stage fueling. At the end of the procedure, around midnight, a liquid hydrogen flow control valve leaked.

Flight management sent a team of two technicians and one responsible for safety to the platform to tighten the valve screws. After the procedure, the refueling was successfully resumed.

The weather forecast gives a 90% chance of good conditions for the beginning of the flight window. But of course, in addition to the weather, it is possible that there is a problem with the launch systems.

The total duration of the mission, which involves taking the capsule into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, where it will spend about a week before returning to Earth, depends on the day of departure. Leaving this Wednesday, the return is expected to take place on December 11, making a 26-day space flight. Fewer than the 42 possible if the mission had taken place in August, but still longer than any of the Apollo missions carried out in the last century.

If all goes well, the plan is to launch a manned Artemis 2 in 2023 (most likely 2024), on the first trip by humans around the Moon since Apollo 17, held in December 1972. And the Artemis 3, officially still scheduled for 2025 (but almost certainly destined to be delayed), would perform the first manned lunar landing of the 21st century.

For now, James Free, associate administrator for the development of NASA’s exploration systems, doesn’t even like to talk about these future missions, because everything depends on a success with Artemis 1. Although it flies without a crew, it will not be a mission without news: if everything goes well, we will see the farthest flight from Earth ever made by a capsule intended to carry humans.

COMPLICATED PATH

A lot can be said about the development of the show, except that it was somewhat troubled. It is a story that has dragged on and on since the accident with the space shuttle Columbia, in 2003, which made the agency rethink the future of its exploration missions.

The rocket alone, the SLS, cost US$ 23.8 billion (originally estimated at US$ 10 billion) and should have its first flight in 2016. Now the fight is to not let it escape to 2023.

Orion, in turn, represents an important partnership between Americans and Europeans: the crew module was made in the USA, but the service module, which includes the propulsion system, is provided by the European company Airbus. Since 2006, its development has cost US$ 20.4 billion. Adding up the total cost of the SLS, Orion, and ground systems, the whole thing cost nearly $50 billion.

To complicate matters, the SLS is an odd mix of new rocketry and old technology. Designed that way by order of the US Congress, it incorporates technologies originally created in the 1970s for the space shuttle. The engines of the first stage of the rocket, by the way, are the same. Literally. They unscrewed them from the old NASA vehicles and plugged them into the new rocket.

The logic was to preserve jobs from the old program and reduce development costs. The first part worked, but the second clearly didn’t. And now the agency has a moon return system that is perhaps too expensive to be sustainable. It is estimated that each launch will cost US$ 4 billion and that the agency will be unable to have a frequency of flights greater than one every two years.

NASA swears that the cost will come down and that it can operate the system more efficiently. Recent events do not seem to support this idea.

FACING HURRICANES

The original plan for this year was to launch the Artemis 1 mission in the first quarter of 2022. It slipped into the first half. And so the first launch attempt did not come until August 29th.

Problems with a temperature sensor in one of the first stage engines led to the countdown being interrupted, with 40 minutes left until takeoff.

A new attempt was made on September 3, but excessive leaks of liquid hydrogen during the rocket’s fueling, above tolerated limits, once again stopped the countdown from advancing three hours before the launch window opened.

Instead of returning the vehicle to the assembly building, NASA opted for an effort to carry out repairs on platform 39B itself at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A rocket fueling exercise conducted after repairs was successful. But then what stopped another flight attempt was Hurricane Ian, which forced the agency to take the rocket back to the assembly building on September 26.

The recall procedure triggered a new series of staging resumes, pushing a new launch effort to mid-November. The rocket arrived back at platform 39B on the 4th, aiming for a launch last Monday (14th).

And then another hurricane, Nicole, crossed Florida. The agency pushed the launch date to this Wednesday (16), but did not have time to collect the vehicle, which was exposed to the hurricane’s wind. At dawn last Thursday (10), winds of up to 160 km/h hit the rocket.

It tells NASA that everything happened within the limits supported by the vehicle. There is some controversy over this, given the height of the rocket (98 m). Fact is, there was some damage.

Some of the filling material between the emergency escape system and the Orion capsule on top of the rocket came off. Even while counting down, NASA was analyzing the risk that more of this material would “delaminate,” to use their phrase, and become debris that could hit the SLS body during flight (yes, remember the Columbia case, in which foam from the tank hit the edge of the shuttle’s wing and doomed the mission on re-entry). In the end, they decided the risks were small.

There were also issues with one of the second stage’s telemetry connectors. The agency continued to try to restore its operation, but noting that, even if it was not possible, there was redundancy.

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