![]() ![]() The next fueling test will be used to check that the leak repairs worked, Bolger said. Before the two launch attempts, the agency performed four test runs, called "wet dress rehearsals," but didn't manage to check all the desired boxes during any of them. "As far as I was concerned, everybody's finger was on that switch."įueling the Artemis 1 SLS rocket with its 736,000 gallons (2.79 million liters) of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant has been a challenge for NASA. 17 fueling test, NASA will try out a slower, "kinder and gentler" process that should avoid such events. "So we didn't, as a leadership team, put our our operators in the best place we could have," Bolger said. Bolger said new manual processes replaced automated ones during the second attempt and the launch team could have used more time to practice them. NASA has not confirmed if an "inadvertent" manual command that briefly overpressurized the hydrogen fuel line caused the leak, but the agency is investigating the incident. Even if it slips a few days, NASA would still be able to pursue the Sept. "I would not be surprised to see it slip a day or two," Bolger said. 17, but the schedule is tight, Mike Bolger, NASA's Exploration Ground Systems manager, said in today's press conference. That test is currently scheduled for no earlier than Sept. The Artemis 1 SLS rocket must then pass a fueling test to check if the seal fix worked. The Artemis 1 rocket on the launch pad on Sept. ![]() That work is ongoing this week at the Artemis 1 rocket's Pad 39B launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The agency is also working on a smaller fuel connector that saw a different leak on Aug. NASA must fix that leak by replacing a seal around an 8-inch (20 centimeters) fuel line on the SLS' core booster. A persistent liquid hydrogen leak that beat three attempted fixes led to the Sept. 29 but stood down due to an engine cooling issue that was traced to a bad sensor. NASA first tried to launch the mission on Aug. All of that depends on a successful test flight of Artemis 1.Įven with the FTS test waiver, NASA has its hands full trying to get Artemis 1 ready for what will be its third launch attempt. ![]() The first crewed Artemis mission, Artemis 2, will fly astronauts around the moon in 2024, with the Artemis 3 crewed landing to follow a year later. It is an uncrewed flight that will test the SLS megarocket and its Orion spacecraft to verify that both are ready to fly astronauts. Artemis 1 is NASA's first mission of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon by 2025. ![]()
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