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NASA’s mega-lunar rocket encountered an engine problem during a critical test on Saturday, and the error could further delay the agency’s efforts to return the astronauts to the moon.
The rocket, called the Space Launch System (SLS), is designed to ultimately hold 365 feet (111 meters) and carry astronauts to the Moon between the mid to late 2020s.
The system is a critical part of a larger program called Artemis, a roughly $ 30 billion effort to put boots back on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. NASA has spent roughly $ 18 billion to develop the rocket.
The main stage of the SLS – the largest part of the system and its structural backbone – was assembled and securely attached to the Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Saturday for a critical “hot fire” test.
For the first time, the rocket was ready to fire its four powerful RS-25 engines simultaneously as it would for launch.
The center stage is the largest and most powerful rocket stage in the world, according to NASA. It houses five main sections, including a 537,000 gallon (2 million liters) tank for liquid hydrogen, a 196,000 gallon (742,000 liters) tank for liquid oxygen, four RS-25 engines, avionics computers and ‘other subsystems.
Boeing is the prime contractor, and Aerojet Rocketdyne is responsible for its RS-25 engines, which were used to power NASA’s fleet of space shuttles.
On Saturday, the fuel tanks were filled with 733,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant, and the engines came to life around 5:27 p.m. EST.
“It was like an earthquake,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters at a press conference after the test.
“It was a wonderful moment. And it just brought joy that after all this time we now have a rocket. The only rocket on the face of the planet capable of taking humans to the moon fired the four RS-25 engines. at a time.”
The engines were supposed to fire continuously for eight minutes. But about a minute after the test, the motor controller sent a command to the main stage controller to stop them.
Stennis Space Center crews lift the main stage January 22 (NASA)
The controllers had seen a flash next to the thermal protection blanket covering the engine four. Shortly thereafter, this engine registered an MCF, or “major component failure.” What happened is not yet clear.
“By the time they made the call, we still had four good engines running at 109 percent,” John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, told a press conference. .
The whole thing was captured during the NASA live broadcast:
“The amount of progress we’ve made here today is remarkable. And no, it’s not a failure. It’s a test. And we’ve tested today in a way that’s significant, where we are going to learn and we “We’re going to make adjustments and we’re going to fly to the moon,” Bridenstine said.
The SLS team will spend the next few days studying the data from the test, evaluating the core phase and the drivers to understand what happened and how to move forward.
NASA may need to redo the hot fire test
Saturday’s burning fire was supposed to be the eighth and final stage of NASA’s “Green Run,” a program designed to thoroughly test every part of the main stage before SLS’s first launch, called Artemis 1 – a flight d unmanned test currently scheduled for November 2021..
But that timeline may be unrealistic now. If the searing fire went well, NASA planned to ship the rocket to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., In February. There, the workers would stack all the segments of the two boosters needed to send Artemis 1 around the moon.
It’s unclear how long it will take NASA to correct the engine error and bring the main stage to Florida now.
“It depends on the nature of the anomaly and how difficult it is to remedy it. And we have a lot to learn to understand that,” Bridenstine said.
“It could very well be something that is easily fixable and that we could feel confident going down to Cape Town and sticking to the schedule. It is also true that we might find a challenge that will take longer.”
The agency may need to redo the hot fire test. The SLS team wanted to achieve at least 250 seconds of engine start to have great confidence in the vehicle. Saturday’s test lasted just over 60 seconds.
It would take at least four or five days to prepare the Stennis Space Center facilities for another test. If NASA needs to swap out current engines for new ones, workers can do it on-site at the Stennis Space Center. Honeycutt estimated that it would take around seven to ten days to achieve this.
“This is why we are testing,” Bridenstine said. “Before we put American astronauts on American rockets, this is where we need them to be perfect.”
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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