The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft rolled back out to the launch pad Nov. 4 as the agency prepares for the third attempt to launch the vehicle on Artemis 1 mission later this month. SLS and Orion, on its mobile launch platform, arrived at Launch Complex 39B at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Nov. 4, a little more than nine hours after emerging from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The rollout was the fourth for the vehicle since March. The rollout supports NASA’s plans to conduct the next Artemis 1 launch attempt Nov. 14, with liftoff scheduled at 12:07 a.m. Eastern at the beginning of a 69-minute launch window. Two backup windows are reserved for Nov. 16 and Nov. 19. In a Nov, 3 call with reporters, Jim Free, associate administrator for exploration systems development, said managers gave the go-ahead for the rollout after reviewing weather forecasts that show the risk of a tropical storm system forming and heading towards Florida early next week. “Our engineering team thought it was an OK risk to go out tonight,” he said. Mark Burger, launch weather officer with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45, said there is only a 30% chance of the system becoming a named storm, with peak wind gusts not expected to exceed 74 kilometers per hour. “Those are well within our constraints for riding out” the storm at the pad, he said. “We’ll have impacts from that in terms of the wind, but we’re not looking at any likelihood at this point of see a strong system emerge out of this.” SLS and Orion had been in the VAB since late September, when NASA rolled back to protect the vehicle from Hurricane Ian. Before the storm forced the rollback, agency officials felt they had resolved hydrogen leak problems that scrubbed the previous launch attempt Sept. 3.
The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft emerge from the Vehicle Assembly Building to head to Launch Complex 39B for a Nov. 14 launch. Credit: Jordan Sirokie
The investigation into that leak has not turned up a single clear cause. “There’s not really a smoking gun, per se,” said Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager in NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program. “We feel pretty confident that, through the loading procedures and controlling the pressures, we understand it much better now.”
“Our teams have continued to grow and learn about the vehicle, and we’re confident,” said Free, who added he felt they had three good opportunities to launch. “But, it’s a flight test.”
“What we’ve learned in every wet dress [rehearsal], our two launch attempts and our tanking test help build our confidence,” he said. “I don’t think we would roll out if we didn’t feel confident.”
If the vehicle does not launch by Nov. 19, there is a fourth possible launch window on Nov. 25. Beyond that, Free said NASA would likely leave the vehicle on the pad and wait until the next launch period opens in December, which would require getting waivers from the Eastern Range for the SLS flight termination system, much like what happened in September.
December also marks the deadline for the lifetime of the two solid rocket boosters. Lanham said that the boosters, which originally had a 12-month life when they were stacked in early 2021, have been certified through Dec. 9 for one booster and Dec. 14 for the other. If the vehicle doesn’t launch by then, Free said, they would do another “analysis cycle” on the boosters to see if their lives can be further extended.
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission and a Japanese lander are set to launch to the moon from Florida within days of each other in November. NASA announced Oct. 12 that it has scheduled the launch of the Artemis 1 mission for Nov. 14 from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch would take place during a 69-minute window that opens at 12:07 a.m. Eastern. Backup launch windows are available Nov. 16 at 1:04 a.m. Eastern and Nov. 19 at 1:45 a.m. Eastern, each two hours long. The agency said that inspections of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft after it rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building Sept. 27 found “minimal work” needed to prepare them for another launch attempt. That work includes repairing minor damage to the rocket’s thermal protection system from earlier launch attempts and tests, as well as replacing or recharging batteries for the rocket’s flight termination system. NASA expects to have the vehicle ready to roll back to Launch Complex 39B as soon as Nov. 4. NASA rolled the rocket back to the VAB to protect it from Hurricane Ian as the storm cut across Florida. That ruled out launch opportunities in late September and early October, and the rollback meant NASA could not try again during a launch period open in the latter half of October. The new launch opportunities are near the start of the following launch period. NASA is pressing ahead with those opportunities despite them being at night. Agency officials earlier suggested they preferred to launch during the day for improved tracking of the SLS on its inaugural flight, but that would have required waiting until at least Nov. 22, in the latter half of the launch period.
The HAKUTO-R M1 lander, built by ispace, undergoes final preparations in Germany for shipment to Cape Canaveral for a Falcon 9 launch Nov. 9-15. Credit: ispace
The new launch date for Artemis 1 means it is now scheduled for launch within days of a commercial lunar lander mission. Japanese company ispace announced Oct. 12 that it plans to launch its first HAKUTO-R lander on a Falcon 9 between Nov. 9 and 15 from Cape Canaveral.
The M1 lander completed testing last month at a facility in Germany and it being prepared for shipment to the launch site. The lander is carrying a variety of payloads, including a small lunar rover called Rashid developed by the United Arab Emirates.
“For me this is a milestone on the road to realizing our vision, but I am already proud of our results,” Takeshi Hakamada, chief executive of ispace, said in a statement. “I look forward to watching the launch alongside all of our employees and those who have supported us.”
That schedule puts ispace ahead of two American companies also preparing lunar landers for launch. Both Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines had planned to launch their first lander missions before the end of the year, carrying payloads that included those provided by NASA though its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. However, Intuitive Machines said over the summer that the Falcon 9 launch of its IM-1 mission would slip to early 2023.
Astrobotic, flying on the inaugural mission of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, had been holding a 2022 launch until Oct. 10, when ULA announced it was delaying the launch to the first quarter of 2023 to give Astrobotic more time to complete its lander. It was not clear that Vulcan itself would be ready to launch this year because of delays in the delivery of the BE-4 engines that power its first stage.
In an Oct. 10 statement, John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said his company would release more details about its launch plans in the near future, but noted the lander has recently returned to the company’s Pittsburgh headquarters after completing pressure testing of its propulsion system.
“We are now proceeding with final spacecraft assembly which includes installation of the solar panel along with avionics, sensors, communications equipment and payloads, which are already tested and integrated with their corresponding decks,” he said. “As Peregrine begins its journey to the Moon in early 2023, it will be an incredible accomplishment for Astrobotic, the city of Pittsburgh, and the space industry as a whole.”
Tokyo-based ispace is not directly a part of the CLPS program. However, its U.S. office is part of a team led by Draper that won a CLPS award in July for a lander mission to the far side of the moon scheduled for launch in 2025.
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.”
