The NASA Artemis I mega moon rocket may face another attempt at its crucial prelaunch ground test as early as next week, according to NASA officials.
Engineers are putting the 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Artemis I rocket stack, including NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, through its final paces on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They encountered a hydrogen leak issue on Thursday.
The crucial test, known as the wet dress rehearsal, simulates every stage of launch without the rocket leaving the launchpad. This process includes loading propellant, going through a full countdown simulating launch, resetting the countdown clock and draining the rocket tanks.
The team was able to load supercold propellant into the SLS rocket’s core stage tanks but “encountered a liquid hydrogen leak on the tail service mast umbilical that prevented the team from completing the test,” according to the agency.
“After troubleshooting it, the team decided to knock it off for the day because when you have hydrogen leaks, and you have ambient oxygen out there, you only need an ignition source to close the fire triangle. So it was a flammability risk,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager at NASA headquarters, said during a Friday news conference.
Technicians collected data, drained the tanks and ensured that the rocket remained safe and stable. Despite the leak, the team was able to work through a number of critical test items during the third attempt.
“The mega moon rocket is fine,” Sarafin said. “All the issues that we’re encountering are procedural and lessons learned.”
Now, the test team continues to assess how to address the leak. Troubleshooting began Friday morning.
The team “will look at these particular areas that we think could be the issue, how we get access to them” and determine a pathway forward, said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program, during a Friday news conference.
In the meantime, the team is getting ready for the next potential opportunity at another wet dress rehearsal attempt on April 21, the earliest time the team is comfortable with, Sarafin said. The Artemis team is working closely with SpaceX because the Crew-4 launch is expected to take place at a nearby launchpad on April 23.
Sarafin did not disclose the exact plan for keeping the run-through on track, given that only 24 hours have passed since the leak, but he said the team is looking into options that are “readily accessible.”
“We hope that here’s something that is fairly straightforward and needs to be adjusted or is easily resolved, and we can do that at the pad and do it in fairly short order,” Sarafin said. “And then there are a couple of more invasive options, and we’ve got to weigh those against a whole host of considerations that include putting additional stress on the vehicle.”
The longer the rocket remains on the launchpad, the more it’s subjected to wind and other stressors while exposed to the elements — not to mention the strain induced by repeated tests. That could determine when the stack will be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the space center.
Testing ambitious missions
Posted on 16th April 2022