View larger. | The core stage for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is seen within the B-2 Test Stand throughout a scorching hearth test January 16, 2021, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center close to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Image by way of NASA.
A planned eight-minute test firing of the 4 engines of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) – a megarocket extra highly effective than the Saturn V that propelled the Apollo astronauts to the moon – didn’t go as planned on Saturday, January 16, 2021. The test was performed at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The rocket is the one meant to launch the following man and first girl on a return to the moon by 2024 in NASA’s Artemis program. The 4 engines on the booster stage have been supposed to fireside for the eight minutes they’d want to fireside throughout an precise launch. Instead, the engines fired for under a couple of minute.
NASA mentioned in a statement:
The staff efficiently accomplished the countdown and ignited the engines, however the engines shut down a bit of multiple minute into the recent hearth. Teams are assessing the info to find out what brought about the early shutdown, and can decide a path ahead.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who attended the test, mentioned:
Saturday’s test was an necessary step ahead to make sure that the core stage of the SLS rocket is prepared for the Artemis 1 mission [an uncrewed test mission whose launch had been planned for later this year], and to hold crew on future missions. Although the engines didn’t hearth for the total length, the staff efficiently labored by the countdown, ignited the engines, and gained worthwhile knowledge to tell our path ahead.
Read more from NASA about the specifics of the January 16 test of NASA’s SLS megarocket
“I want people to be encouraged because the future is very bright, and certainly we’re going to learn a lot from this test.” – Administrator @JimBridenstine displays on right this moment’s scorching hearth of the @NASA_SLS rocket core stage. pic.twitter.com/vYfpxr56nG
— NASA (@NASA) January 17, 2021
.@NASA_SLS program supervisor John Honeycutt supplies a abstract of right this moment’s rocket core stage test at @NASAStennis: pic.twitter.com/RwpFwoiEli
— NASA (@NASA) January 17, 2021
“The test article that is behind us is also the flight hardware that will launch Orion to the Moon. This is unique. […] This article made the right decision to shut itself down.” – Administrator @JimBridenstine on right this moment’s @NASA_SLS core stage test. pic.twitter.com/hv7mRx7gAn
— NASA (@NASA) January 17, 2021
The January 16 test – referred to as a hot-fire test – was meant to be the fruits in a sequence of assessments for the SLS megarocket. Originally scheduled to happen in early to mid-November 2020, this remaining testing was wanted to maintain its schedule on monitor for the rocket’s debut launch on the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in mid-to-late 2021 and, in the end, to the ultimate crewed launch to the moon in 2024.
Although the SLS testing sequence began with a profitable modal test – a form of vibration testing – performed in January 2020, the continued coronavirus pandemic then slowed the testing course of. On-site work at Stennis was stopped by NASA management in March 2020, across the similar time many within the U.S. started working from house, because of the pandemic. The heart started reopening slowly in mid-May, and the second SLS test was accomplished on the core stage (the orange “body” of the rocket) in late June.
That test ensured that the software program and different electrical interfaces concerned within the rocket and the testing stand work correctly.
View larger. | In the January 16, 2021, test, the Four RS-25 engines fired for a bit of greater than a minute and generated 1.6 million kilos of thrust. Image by way of NASA.
The rocket has since undergone and handed the following 4 steps of what’s referred to as the “green run” sequence:
– Test 3, by which engineers inspected all the protection programs that shut down operations throughout testing. During this test, they simulated potential issues.
– Test 4, the primary test of every of the primary propulsion system elements that hook up with the engines. Command and management operations have been verified, and the core stage was checked for leaks in fluid or gasoline.
– Test 5, by which engineers ensured the thrust vector management system can transfer the 4 engines and checked all of the associated hydraulic programs.
– Test 6, which simulated the launch countdown, together with step-by-step fueling procedures. Core stage avionics have been powered on, and propellant loading and pressurization have been simulated. The test staff exercised and validated the countdown timeline and sequence of occasions.
The scorching hearth is the ultimate test of the Green Run test sequence, a complete evaluation of the Space Launch System’s core stage earlier than launching the Artemis I mission to the moon. Image by way of NASA.
After the January 16 scorching hearth test, engineers had planned to refurbish the core stage and configure it for its journey to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the place nonetheless extra assessments await the core stage.
Now – with the Biden administration coming into workplace on January 20, 2021, and with the failure of the January 16 test – the scheduling of the Artemis program is unsure.
Read more: How will the U.S. space program fare under President Joe Biden?
This graphic illustrates what the eight components of the inexperienced run is supposed to test, as properly as the person elements of the SLS Core Stage (orange rocket physique). Image by way of NASA.
Bottom line: The failure of NASA’s SLS megarocket hot-fire test on January 16, 2021 is a transparent setback for NASA’s Artemis program. The first launch in this system – an uncrewed mission referred to as Artemis 1 – was meant to launch in late 2021. The program was meant to hold the following man and first girl again to the moon by 2024. That objective now seems unlikely.
