Beyond Gravity: Mission-critical supplier for exploration

Moon, Mars or Jupiter: No matter how distant or challenging a deep space mission, products from Beyond Gravity (formerly RUAG Space) help make space exploration a success. Many international science missions use key technology from Beyond Gravity. One example is the NASA Artemis moon program, which uses technology from Beyond Gravity (formerly RUAG Space) for the powering of its Orion crew capsules. Orion’s powerhouse, the European Service Module, receives its energy from solar power – four Beyond Gravity mechanisms per mission make sure that solar arrays are perfectly aligned towards the sun. “Our mechanisms have to perform particularly complex and extremely precise movements and position the solar array panels correctly for all three Artemis missions,” says Anders Linder, head of the satellite business at Beyond Gravity. The mechanisms are the largest mechanisms the company has built so far. “We are one of the few suppliers offering a full range of Solar Array Drive Mechanisms from the microsatellite class to the largest geostationary satellites or science missions.” Another highlight: Beyond Gravity is also building the Sunshield Solar Array Subsystem for the European “planet-hunting” mission PLATO.

Beyond Gravity designs and assemblies the optical bench of PLATO, on which 26 cameras will be mounted. Prime contractor is OHB in Germany. Credit: Artist’s impression © OHB System AG

Stable spacecraft structure

The structure is the spacecraft’s underlying body, which keeps it suitably rigid. As a global leader for satellite structures, Beyond Gravity, headquartered in Switzerland, designs, engineers, manufactures, assembles and tests high-precision and dimensionally stable satellite structures. For the Artemis European Service Module, as well as for the European ExoMars mission, Beyond Gravity delivered structures, which form part of the spacecraft’s chassis. They can be used as satellite backbones or as instrument platforms for mounting optical or other instruments. For example, Beyond Gravity designs and assemblies the optical bench of PLATO, on which 26 cameras will be mounted. Linder: “We are capable of developing and manufacturing sophisticated satellite structures on one hand, but also deliver satellites structure panels with highest-in-this-industry manufacturing cadence, short turn around and application of industrialization and quality standards on the other hand.”

Computers with strong track-record

Beyond Gravity computers have a strong track-record for institutional missions. For example, the company develops and produces the computer for the European planet-hunting mission PLATO, scheduled for launch in 2026 or Europe’s Jupiter icy moons mission JUICE. The data handling system will control the satellite, collect research information and communicate with the ground. If very high processing performance is needed Beyond Gravity offers the “Lynx” single board computer with a high-performance processor and a powerful FPGA. The Lynx computer is 250 times more powerful than regular onboard computers. Lynx is designed for a long life in any satellite orbit or spacecraft trajectory and can be used on the platform or in the payload.

Apart from spacecraft, rovers like the ExoMars rover are controlled by a Beyond Gravity onboard computer. The vehicle’s brain will handle all data from cameras and instruments. The computer will also autonomously navigate the rover on the surface of Mars and communicate with the ground control center on Earth.

Thermal protection for deep space

To protect probes from cold and heat on their year-long journey to distant planets and during their operational mission lifetime, Beyond Gravity develops and produces customized high-quality thermal insulation. One example is the thermal protection for the European-Japanese Mercury probe BepiColombo (launched 2018), which must withstand lengthy exposure to temperatures as high as 450 degrees Celsius. Beyond Gravity provides thermal insulation to numerous other exploration missions, like PLATO, the US-European sun mission Solar Orbiter or JUICE.

Advanced antenna systems

Beyond Gravity is also known for its advanced antenna systems. For instance, the company enables the communication of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope across the 1.5 million kilometers distance to Earth. “All of the amazing images and science data from the telescope are transmitted through our antenna system,” says Anders Linder.

High precision mechanisms for scientific instruments

Beyond Gravity has vast experience in the development and production of mechanisms for scientific instruments. “For the Webb telescope we are responsible for three crucial mechanisms for two of the telescope’s scientific instruments,” states Linder. Two further highlights: “For the ExoMars rover we provided a complex vehicle camera mast and for BepiColombo the steering system, the mechanism that points the electric propulsion.”

High-tech containers and trolleys

To transport a billion-dollar science satellite on Earth, only the best technology comes into question. For example, NASA trusts in a reusable high-tech container from Beyond Gravity for its deep space missions Europa Clipper and the Psyche asteroid mission. In total, Beyond Gravity delivered more than 60 customized spacecraft containers to governmental customers like ESA, NASA and commercial customers like Ball Aerospace or Maxar. Beyond Gravity also builds multipurpose trolleys, that can rotate and tilt a spacecraft during integration, like the Webb telescope or the interplanetary NASA spacecraft Europa Clipper. So far Beyond Gravity delivered more than 80 multipurpose trolleys to institutional and commercial customers in Europe and USA.

Lander companies prepare to shoot for the moon

When NASA unveiled in 2018 the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, its effort to fly science and technology demonstration payloads on commercial lunar landers, the phrase agency officials often used to describe it was “shots on goal.” The phrase was meant to describe the agency’s acceptance of risk and expectations of success for the program: just as not every soccer ball or hockey puck makes it into the back of the net, not every CLPS mission was expected to touch down successfully on the lunar surface. The payoff would come in more frequent and less expensive ways of reaching the moon to support science and exploration. Today, NASA is still waiting for that first shot on goal. The agency has issued task orders for eight missions to five companies: Astrobotic Technology, Draper, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and Masten Space Systems. Some of those companies are finally getting close to flying their missions, with launches scheduled for late this year or early next year. Another company, though, has stumbled long before taking its shot on goal.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander will go to the moon in 2024. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

MASTEN’S STUMBLE

Masten won a CLPS task order in April 2020 for a lander mission to the lunar south polar region. Masten’s XL-1 lander would carry a set of NASA instruments on what the company called Masten Mission One, or MM1.

Masten, a small company based at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, had been best known for developing vertical takeoff and landing rockets, including those that won more than $1 million in 2009 in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, part of NASA’s Centennial Challenge prize program. The XL-1 lander would be by far the company’s biggest project.

However, the company struggled to develop the lander and delayed its late 2022 launch by a year, citing the effects of the pandemic and supply chain problems. It also failed to raise the money needed to develop the mission, including hiring staff and expanding facilities.

Those problems came to a head July 28, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in Delaware. The documents Masten filed with the bankruptcy court revealed a company that had bitten off more than it could chew with the CLPS award.

“It was proud of its well-earned gritty, non-corporate reputation in the industry,” Masten’s lawyers said of the company, “but this presented problems when the company needed to scale up rapidly.”

Masten tried to raise $60 million last year, the filings state, but could not find a lead investor. Timing was an issue: by the time Masten went looking for funding, “many investors interested in making substantial investments in space companies had already done so.”

A space company identified in the documents only as Company A approached Masten in March about acquiring it and signed a letter of intent to do so at the end of the month. A month later, though Company A backed out, citing “substantial liabilities recognized to date and additional future projected losses associated with MM1.” Several other potential deals failed to materialize, forcing Masten into Chapter 11 in July.

Masten said at the time of the filing the company planned to use Chapter 11 to reorganize. “Masten intends to use the Chapter 11 process to streamline Masten’s expenses, optimize its operations and conduct sale processes that maximize value for its unsecured creditors,” Sean Bedford, general counsel of Masten, said in a statement.

However, in an Aug. 14 filing, Masten announced it had a “stalking horse” agreement with Astrobotic to sell “substantially all” its assets for $4.2 million, including a $14 million credit on a SpaceX launch contract. Such an agreement guarantees a minimum Masten would get but allows it to seek better offers. Astrobotic declined to comment on the agreement, and the bankruptcy proceedings are set to wrap up in early September.

Illustration of Masten Space System’s XL-1 lander, whose future is in question after the company filed for Chapter 11 in July. Credit: Masten Space Systems

NASA, which paid Masten $66.1 million of that $81.3 million CLPS award at the time of the Chapter 11 filing, has largely refrained from commenting on the company’s status beyond assuring those with NASA-sponsored payloads on the lander that they will fly, one way or another.

“We’ll find out at the end of their Chapter 11 reorganization if they are ready to fulfill the terms of the task order,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, during a presentation at the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) Aug. 24 at the Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. “If they’re not, we’ll go manifest those instruments, those investigations, on other delivery opportunities.”

ASTROBOTIC AND INTUITIVE MACHINES PREPARE FOR LAUNCH

Two other companies are preparing to make their first shots on goal. In April, Astrobotic unveiled its Peregrine lander at its Pittsburgh headquarters. The lander was still being assembled — it was missing solar panels, fuel tanks and payloads — but company executives were confident that Peregrine would be ready for launch before the end of the year.

Astrobotic has provided limited updates on the progress of Peregrine since then but is sticking to a launch in the fourth quarter. “We’re continuing integration” of the lander, said Dan Hendrickson, vice president of business development at Astrobotic, at the LEAG meeting.

One complication is that the launch date is not entirely in Astrobotic’s control: the lander is flying on the first launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, which has suffered development delays. “We are planning for a mission at the end of this year,” he said but declined to say when the completed lander would need to be delivered to Cape Canaveral to support that, assuming the rocket is ready. “We are actively executing towards that schedule right now.”

Intuitive Machines has also hoped to launch the first of its Nova-C landers, called IM-1, before the end of the year. Problems with a composite propellant tank on the lander, though, delayed work on it.

In an interview in April at the company’s headquarters in Houston, Steve Altemus, president and chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said he was still hoping to launch IM-1 in December but needed to cut 30 days from the schedule to meet that goal. Changes in assembly procedures promised to save 18 days, “so I’ve got to find 12 more days to be able to get off in December.”

Those savings, though, didn’t materialize, and by July the company said it now expected IM-1 to launch in early 2023 on a Falcon 9. The payload space on that lander is sold out with a mix of NASA and commercial payloads, said Trent Martin, vice president of Intuitive Machines, at the LEAG meeting.

For both companies, their landers are just the first of many missions in development. Astrobotic has a second CLPS award for its Griffin lander, a much larger spacecraft that will carry NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the south pole of the moon. Intuitive Machines has CLPS orders for two more Nova-C landers, IM-2 and IM-3, and is also starting work on an IM-4 mission.

Their lunar ambitions go beyond landers. Astrobotic has secured NASA funding for CubeRover, a small rover that would fly on a future lander with technology to survive the two-week lunar night. It also won in August a NASA contract to develop solar panels optimized to work at the south pole.

Intuitive Machines is developing a network of satellites around the moon that would relay data from its landers and other missions; those spacecraft will launch as secondary payloads on Nova-C lander missions. “We always assumed we weren’t just building landers,” Martin said. “We’re building landers, providing data back from the moon, and that has expanded into all things cislunar.”

FIREFLY AND DRAPER

Two other companies are in earlier stages of work on their landers. Firefly, best known for its Alpha launch vehicle, won a NASA CLPS award in February 2021 for its Blue Ghost lander, now scheduled to fly to the moon on a Falcon 9 in 2024.

Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander at Firefly, said at the LEAG meeting that the company has 50 people working full-time on Blue Ghost. That mission passed an integration readiness review in April, confirming the company was ready to move into integration of the lander.

The interconnected nature of the space industry creates for some strange bedfellows. Among the suppliers for Blue Ghost are solar cell manufacturer SolAero and software developer ASI, which are both owned by Rocket Lab, which competes with Firefly in the launch market. Two payloads on the lander are from Honeybee Robotics, which is owned by Blue Origin, another launch company.

“We have four different rocket companies working together to help make this mission possible,” Coogan said. “Sometimes it takes a village. The moon is hard.”

NASA’s latest CLPS award went to Draper, which is providing the SERIES-2 lander for a mission to the lunar farside under a $73 million task order announced July 21. The lander itself is designed by the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese company ispace and will be manufactured by Systima Technologies, while General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems will be responsible for payload integration and testing.

Alan Campbell, program manager for the lander at Draper, said at the LEAG meeting that the lander is quite large. “You can probably fit four or five of us in each of the payload bays,” he said. The lander will ultimately have a payload capacity of 500 kilograms, although it’s unlikely to carry that much on the first mission.

Because the landing site is on the far side of the moon, out of view from the Earth, the mission will bring with it two smallsats from Blue Canyon Technologies that will serve as communications relays. Campbell said Draper has booked a launch but declined to disclose details “until we get a few more things in the paperwork figured out.”

REVISITING SHOTS ON GOAL

All the companies say they know the risks of attempting to land on the moon. The recent track record of such missions globally is mixed: while China has successfully landed three times, India’s first lander and one built by Israel Aerospace Industries for privately funded SpaceIL both crashed while trying to land in 2019.

“I think we know not 100% of these missions are going to succeed. I don’t think any one of us wants to be that does not,” said Firefly’s Coogan. “I would extend that further to say that I do not want one of the first attempts to be one of the ones that fails.”

Astrobotic’s Hendrickson, who has one of those first missions, wants the community to react in much the same way as it did in the commercial cargo program when providers rebounded from launch failures. “We need to steel ourselves and learn from the failures and bounce back,” he said. “We are planning to be more successful than 50/50.”

“It will be a higher risk, and I know NASA understands that,” said Intuitive Machines’ Martin. “It’s the shots-on-goal approach: the more we fly, the better this is going to be, the better the technology is going to get.”

Among those at NASA who promoted the “shots on goal” approach to CLPS is Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science. “We need to have the patience and make sure that the teams can prove themselves so that if the first one fails, we don’t get scared and walk away,” he said in an Aug. 28 interview.

The program, he argued, has already helped lunar science. “I think from the science community’s perspective, CLPS has been a huge success already since it’s gotten many more people involved.”

That approach, though, has its limits. NASA announced July 18 it was delaying the VIPER launch by a year to do more ground tests of the Griffin lander. That work will add $67.5 million to Astrobotic’s CLPS task order, increasing its value to $320.4 million, far more than other CLPS awards.

Zurbuchen said that decision came from a “risk review” that examined whether the risk of flying VIPER, which costs NASA nearly half a billion dollars, on Griffin was appropriate. “The answer was no, you need to add more testing,” he said. “The delivery model is fine, you just need to add more testing.

He added NASA examined how much it would cost the agency to develop its own lander for VIPER, following a more conventional approach than CLPS. “The answer is a factor of two or three more,” he said.

If CLPS is successful, he sees it expanding beyond delivering science instruments. Such landers could preposition equipment and supplies for Artemis missions, reducing what the crewed landers have to bring with them.

But first, those shots have to find their way into the goal. “There’s a non-zero chance that one or multiple of these missions will not work,” Zurbuchen said, at which point the industry will see how committed NASA is to the CLPS approach. “I sure hope we are.”

Rocket Lab launches Japanese radar imaging satellite on 30th Electron mission

Rocket Lab successfully launched a Japanese radar imaging satellite Sept. 15 as the company prepares for another attempt to recover and reuse a booster. An Electron rocket lifted off from Pad B at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 4:38 p.m. Eastern. The rocket’s kick stage deployed its payload, the StriX-1 satellite for Japanese company Synspective, into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 563 kilometers about an hour later. The satellite is the third synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite launched for Synspective, all on Electron rockets. StriX-1 is the first “pre-commercial” satellite after two demonstration satellites as the company prepares to build out a constellation of up to 30 SAR satellites by 2026. StriX-1 features improvements to its batteries and communications system to enable it to collect more imagery. The launch was the seventh Electron mission of the year and the 30th overall for the company. StriX-1 was the 150th satellite placed in orbit over those Electron missions. Rocket Lab did not attempt to recover the Electron first stage. The last attempt to do so was on a launch in May, when a helicopter briefly grappled the stage as it descended under a parachute but had to let it go because of unanticipated loads on the helicopter. The booster was instead recovered from the ocean after splashing down. During the webcast of the StriX-1 launch, the company said it would make another midair recovery attempt later this year.

A Rocket Lab Electron lifts off Sept. 15 carrying the StriX-1 radar imaging satellite. Credit: Rocket Lab webcast

Rocket Lab has continued work to prepare reusing boosters. The company announced Sept. 1 it test-fired a Rutherford engine from the booster recovered from the May launch, demonstrating that it worked with only “minimal” refurbishment after its first flight.

“If we can achieve this high level of performance from engine components recovered from the ocean, then I’m optimistic and incredibly excited about what we can do when we bring back dry engines under a helicopter next time,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a statement.

Others in the small launch vehicle industry remain more skeptical about the benefits of reusability for such rockets. “Reusability, in my mind, always pops up as something extremely fancy and attractive, and also there is obviously the appeal of something more environmentally friendly,” said Giulio Ranzo, chief executive of Avio, manufacturer of the Vega, during a panel at World Satellite Business Week Sept. 13.

He argued that reusability made sense primarily for larger launch vehicles with a high flight rate. “The smaller the launcher and the lower the flight rate, the more it becomes useless,” he said. “I do not see, technically, how on a 200-kilogram-performance launcher, reusability would be very convenient, especially if the flight rate tends to be something like four or five launches a year.”

“Reusability is something that is going to be looked at,” said Jason Mello, president of Firefly Space Transport Services, a subsidiary of Firefly Aerospace. That includes both for the company’s Alpha vehicle, about to make its second flight, as well as the future Medium Launch Vehicle it will develop with Northrop Grumman.

“We have to look at the business case and see what makes sense, and what is that customer demand that we need,” he said.

Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said the company has looked at reusability for its LauncherOne rocket. “There are puts and takes there,” he said. “There are constraints and logistics complexities associated with reusability. However, if you get the hardware back and make use of it, there’s certainly a benefit to that.”

He said the company has been looking at manufacturing improvements to drive down launch costs rather than rely on reusing components. “The tradeoff is pretty unclear of whether reusability makes a whole lot of sense.”

One part of the overall LauncherOne system is reusable, though: the Boeing 747 aircraft used as the air-launch platform for the rocket. “She’s flown over 8,500 times,” Hart said of the company’s plane. “So, from a reusability standpoint, I think she’s in the lead.”

China launches military communications satellite to orbit

China's busy spaceflight year continues. The nation launched its 38th orbital mission of 2022 on Tuesday (Sept. 13), sending the Zhongxing-1E satellite aloft atop a Long March 7A rocket. The launcher lifted off at 9:18 a.m. EDT (1318 GMT; 9:18 p.m. Beijing time) from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the island of Hainan and successfully delivered its payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) as planned, Chinese space officials said. Zhongxing-1E was built by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). China has said little about the spacecraft, describing it in general terms as a communications satellite. "The vague description of the satellite matches statements for earlier Zhongxing-1 series satellites," Andrew Jones reported for Space News. "The lack of information and images of the satellite suggests that the satellite series serves military customers." The most recent satellite in the series, Zhongxing-1D, launched in November 2021 atop a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China, Jones wrote. "The switch of launcher and spaceport for the Zhongxing-1E launch, along with wording in a CAST press release, suggests a larger, heavier satellite bus than earlier satellites," he wrote, noting that the Long March 3 is considerably less powerful than the 197-foot-tall (60 meters) Long March 7A. "The satellite was also transported by ship from Tianjin to Wenchang, whereas satellites are flown to Xichang."

A Long March 7A rocket carrying the Zhongxing-1E communications satellite launches from China's Wenchang Space Launch Site on Sept. 13, 2022. (Image credit: CCTV)

But it's also possible, Jones wrote, that China is simply moving away from the Long March 3B and toward the 7A for launches to GTO. In addition to being less powerful than the 7A, the 3B is considerably older; it debuted in 1996, whereas the 7A's first successful flight occurred just last year.

China isn't alone in setting a breakneck launch pace this year. SpaceX has already conducted 41 orbital missions in 2022, most of them devoted to building out its huge Starlink broadband constellation.

SpaceX to launch five spare Iridium satellites

Iridium will launch five of its remaining six ground spare satellites on a Falcon 9 rideshare mission in 2023, the company announced Sept. 8. Iridium said it selected SpaceX for the launch of the five satellites, sharing a launch with other, unnamed payloads. The launch is scheduled for the middle of 2023 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. “We have always said that when the right opportunity presented itself, we would launch many, if not all, of our remaining ground spares, and just such an opportunity came about,” Matt Desch, chief executive of Iridium, said in a statement announcing the launch. “Our constellation is incredibly healthy; however, the spare satellites have no utility to us on the ground.” Iridium launched its second generation of 75 satellites on eight Falcon 9 missions from January 2017 to January 2019. Seven of the launches were dedicated to Iridium and carried 10 satellites each, while the eighth was a rideshare mission with five Iridium satellites and two NASA-German GRACE-FO Earth science spacecraft. Iridium indicated earlier this year it was seeking to launch up to five of the remaining six spare satellites, currently in storage in Arizona. Desch said in April that the company was looking for a cost-effective opportunity to launch the satellites rather than continue to pay to keep them in storage. In its second quarter earnings release July 26, Iridium announced it signed a contract for the launch of five satellites for $35 million but did not disclose the launch provider.

Iridium signed a contract with small launch vehicle startup Relativity Space in 2020 to launch up to six of the ground spares on Relativity’s Terran 1 rocket. The companies said at the time the spares would be launched individually on an on-demand basis to fill gaps in Iridium’s constellation.

Desch said in the July 26 earnings call that the five satellites covered by the new contract would not be launched by Relativity. “We do have an arrangement still” with Relativity, he said. “It offered the opportunity to launch, but didn’t require a specific number of satellites to launch.”

He hinted in the call that the contract could still be exercised for the final spare satellite, and reiterated that in a tweet after announcing the SpaceX launch contract. “It’s an option for us. We still support Relativity’s development (and the rest of the launch industry),” he wrote. “Focused on this one now though.”

Second Artemis 1 launch attempt scrubbed

NASA called off a second attempt to conduct the inaugural launch of the Space Launch System Sept. 3 after failing to resolve a liquid hydrogen leak during fueling of the rocket, potentially delaying the mission until October. NASA scrubbed the launch, which had been scheduled for a two-hour window that opened at 2:17 p.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 39B here, three hours before the window opened. Mission managers concluded that they had run out of time to fix a liquid hydrogen leak detected hours earlier. Controllers noticed a leak in a quick-disconnect fitting for a liquid hydrogen line into the core stage of the SLS shortly after fueling of the core stage started. Engineers made several attempts to reseat the fitting, first by allowing it to warm up and then start flowing liquid hydrogen into it again, believing the temperature change would seal it into place again. It did not work. A second technique involved stopping hydrogen flow and closing a valve, then using pressure from helium in ground systems to force the fitting back into place. That also did not work, as did a second attempt to warm and then cool the fitting. The leak was a large one, said Mike Sarafin, NASA  Artemis mission manager, exceeding a concentration limit of 4%, set by flammability risks, by a factor of two or three. The leak was much larger than one detected in the first launch attempt Monday, which was not a constraint for launch. “In terms of the leak that we saw on Monday, it was a manageable leak. This was not a manageable leak,” he said at a briefing several hours after the scrub.

Controllers called off a second attempt to launch the SLS Sept. 3 after failing to fix a liquid hydrogen leak detected shortly after fueling started. Caption: NASA/Joel Kowsky

One possible cause of the leak, he said, was an “inadvertent overpressurization” of the liquid hydrogen line just before fuel loading started, possibly caused by human error. That could have damaged the seal of the quick-disconnect fitting, but Sarafin added it was too soon to know.

Officials ruled out attempting a launch in the remaining days of the current launch period, called launch period 25 by NASA and which closes Sept. 6. “Launch period 25 is definitely off the table,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development.

The next two opportunities, launch periods 26 and 27, run from Sept. 20 to Oct. 4 and from Oct. 17 to 31, respectively. “Launch periods 26 and 27 will really depend on the options that the team comes back with” early next week, he said.

Those options largely revolve around whether the quick-disconnect fitting can be repaired on the pad or if the work needs to be done back in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). An on-pad repair offers the possibility of completing the work sooner and to test the repairs using the pad’s liquid hydrogen, which is not an option in the VAB.

However, the rocket’s flight termination system (FTS) is certified only through the current launch window. NASA would need to seek an extension from the U.S. Space Force, which operates the Eastern Range, if it wants to keep the vehicle on the pad and allow for a launch as soon as late September. If the FTS certification is not extended, the vehicle would have to roll back to the VAB to check and replace its batteries.

“We don’t have an FTS waiver right now beyond 25 days. Until we have that, we have to roll back,” Free said. “We’ll work with the range to try and get that.”

Other issues about a stay on the pad include the effects of an extended stay on the pad on the Orion spacecraft. Tropical weather could also require the rocket to roll back regardless of any technical constraints.

“We need to look at exactly what work we need to do,” Sarafin said. “It’s a little bit early to say as to what the right path forward is.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reiterated at the briefing that the agency would not attempt to launch Artemis 1 until they feel they are ready. He added he has not noticed any pressure, either from within the agency or from the White House or Congress, to launch the mission.

“If I knew about it, I would try to stop it,” he said. “But we have felt no pressure whatsoever.”