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7 Things We Learned From NASA’s Wildly Successful Artemis 1 Mission

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Orion’s view of the Moon on December 5, the 20th day of the mission.
Photo: NASA

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission concluded with Orion’s immaculate splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. Seemingly a billion years—and most assuredly a few billion dollars—in the making, the mission ended far too quickly for space junkies like me. But in those short few weeks, it managed to nail all its primary objectives. Artemis 1 was strictly meant as a demonstration mission, a way for NASA to test its new SLS megarocket and Orion spacecraft.

It’s still early days, but the mission appears to have been a big success. And because NASA achieved its major goals, we can talk about what went right, what went wrong, and what the successful mission means for the future. Here are seven things we learned from Artemis 1.

1. NASA’s Artemis Moon plans are officially on track

For years, I’ve had to write about NASA’s “upcoming Artemis missions” or “pending trips to the Moon,” but with the success of Artemis 1, it’s fair to say that the space agency’s next era of exploration has officially begun. Artemis—we are officially in you.

NASA’s SLS on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 4, 2022.
Photo: NASA/Kim Shiflett

I have little doubt that NASA’s current timelines for the Artemis missions, including a crewed landing in 2025, are wholly unrealistic. The space agency’s auditor general has said as much. Anticipated launch dates will repeatedly be pushed back for various reasons, whether it be on account of overdue Moonsuits, lunar landers, or any other element required for these increasingly complex missions.

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It’s doubtful that Congress will sabotage or otherwise scuttle NASA’s Artemis plans by withholding funds, but as the holder of the purse strings, it remains the chamber’s prerogative to do so. That said, China is full steam ahead on its plans to send its taikonauts to the lunar surface during the mid-2030s. The U.S. has already put humans on the Moon, but China’s space ambitions are spawning a renewed space race, with some experts saying “we’re falling behind.”

2. SLS is a beast

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket finally roared to life on November 16, sending an uncrewed Orion on its historic journey around the Moon. Blasting off with 8.8 million pounds of thrust, it’s now the most powerful operational rocket in the world and the most powerful rocket ever built. The space agency finally has its megarocket, a necessity of the Artemis program, which seeks to land humans on the Moon later this decade and place a space station, called Gateway, in lunar orbit.

SLS blasting off on November 16, 2022.
Photo: Terry Renna (AP)

“The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket was simply eye-watering,” Mark Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said in a November 30 statement, adding that the rocket’s performance “was off by less than 0.3 percent in all cases across the board.” The rocket program was marred by budget overruns and delays, but SLS ultimately did exactly what it was supposed to do—while dropping our jaws in the process.

3. SLS wreaks havoc to the launch pad—and the pocket books

SLS is awesome, no doubt, but it comes with certain complications.

The launch vehicle’s core stage runs on a mixture of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the same super-leaky propellant that caused major headaches during the Space Shuttle era. Kennedy Space Center ground teams battled hydrogen leaks in advance of the rocket’s inaugural launch, resulting in multiple scrubs and an impromptu cryogenic tanking test in September. The team learned that the finicky rocket requires a kinder, gentler approach to tanking, but hydrogen leaks may continue to pose a problem during future launches.

When the megarocket did finally manage to blast off, it caused significant damage at the launch pad, including new scorch marks, missing paint, battered nitrogen and helium supply lines, and fried cameras. At liftoff, the powerful shockwave also tore off the tower’s elevator doors. NASA officials downplayed the damage, saying some of it was expected. Regardless, the mobile launcher is now in the Vehicle Assembly Building undergoing repairs.

Finally, the rocket, which first emerged as an idea 12 years ago and cost $23 billion to develop, is fully expendable, meaning each SLS rocket must be built from scratch. NASA inspector general Paul Martin expects each launch of SLS to cost upwards of $4.1 billion, “a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable,” he told Congress earlier this year.

SpaceX is currently building its own megarocket, called Starship, which promises to be fully reusable and more powerful than SLS (though to be clear, and as NASA administrator Bill Nelson has stated on numerous occasions, the space agency has no intention of launching Orion with Starship). NASA’s rocket will become an anachronism the moment that Elon Musk’s rocket takes flight. So while SLS’s debut performance was exemplary, the Artemis program as a whole is far from ideal in terms of its execution.

4. Deep space is unwelcoming place for cubesats

SLS, in addition to Orion, delivered 10 cubesats to space. These secondary Artemis 1 payloads went off on their various journeys, but only six of them are functioning as intended, including Arizona State University’s LunaH-Map mission, NASA’s BioSentinel, and Japan’s EQUULEUS mission.

Artist’s impression of Lockheed Martin’s LunIR cubesat, which failed shortly after launch.
Image: Lockheed Martin

The same cannot be said for the other four, namely Southwest Research Institute’s CuSP (CubeSat for Solar Particles), Lockheed Martin’s LunIR, NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout), and Japan’s tiny OMOTENASHI lunar lander—all of which failed shortly after launch. Each failed for different reasons, such as the inability to establish deep space communications, issues with battery power, and deficient designs. The high attrition rate served as a potent reminder: Space is hard, and deep space is even harder.

5. Orion is humanity’s most impressive spaceship yet

We’ve witnessed plenty of capable spacecraft over the years. NASA’s Apollo Command and Service Module was really cool, as was the Space Shuttle. Russia’s Soyuz continues to be super reliable, while SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is the epitome of modern spacefaring. These spaceships are all great, but NASA’s Orion is now, in my opinion, the most impressive crew-friendly vehicle ever built.

Orion and Earth, as imaged on December 3, 2022.
Photo: NASA

The partially reusable Orion consists of a crew module, designed by Lockheed Martin, and the expendable European Service Module, built by Airbus Defence and Space. The system performed exceptionally well during the entire Artemis 1 mission, save for some minor annoyances (which I’ll get to in just a bit). Orion traveled to the Moon, successfully entered into its target distant retrograde orbit, performed a pair of close lunar flybys, and managed to survive skip reentry and splashdown. Each and every course correction maneuver was pulled off without difficulty, with Orion using less fuel than expected.

More on this story: NASA Wants More Spacecraft for Its Upcoming Artemis Moon Missions

The uncrewed Orion clocked over 1.3 million miles during its journey, while establishing a pair of new milestone records. The spacecraft flew to a maximum distance of 268,554 miles (432,194 kilometers) from Earth—the farthest distance traveled by any crew-rated vehicle. And when it came home, Orion slammed into the atmosphere at speeds reaching Mach 32, marking the fastest return velocity in history for a passenger spacecraft. The capsule’s 16.5-foot-wide heat shield protected Orion from the 5,000-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures experienced during reentry.

The next big test for Orion will be Artemis 2, for which it will need to transport four astronauts around the Moon and back. But the upcoming Artemis missions are only the beginning, as NASA plans to use Orion for crewed trips to Mars one day.

6. Orion still needs some tweaking

Artemis 1 unfolded as planned, but that’s not to say it wasn’t without problems. Mike Sarafin, the mission manager, called these anomalies “funnies” throughout Orion’s journey, but I doubt the team found them very amusing.

During the early days of the mission, Orion’s star tracker, which assists with navigation, was “dazzled” by Orion’s thruster plumes. “The thrusters were being picked up by the star tracker because it was thrusting over the field of view of the star tracker by design,” Sarafin told reporters on November 18. “The light was hitting the plume and it was picking it up,” which confused the software. Ultimately, nothing was really wrong with the star tracker, and the team was able to move forward once the problem was recognized.

One of four solar arrays that successfully powered Orion during its 25.5-day mission.
Photo: NASA

The scariest moment happened on November 23, the seventh day of the mission, when ground controllers temporarily and unexpectedly lost contact with the spacecraft for 47 minutes. NASA isn’t sure what caused the issue.

During the final days of the mission, one of Orion’s four limiters suddenly switched off. This limiter, which is responsible for downstream power, was successfully turned back on before the glitch was able to cause serious problems. The anomaly might be related to a similar issue experienced earlier, when a component in the service module spontaneously opened without a command. Seems as though Orion brought a gremlin along for the journey.

Lastly, one of Orion’s phased array antennas exhibited “degraded behavior” during the final days of the mission, as Sarfin told reporters on December 8. This resulted in “low performance” and some “communication problems,” but nothing that endangered the mission, he said. This issue, among others, will be scrutinized and hopefully addressed in time for Artemis 2, currently planned for 2024.

7. The Moon remains a desolate and beautiful place

Images beamed back from the lunar environment served as a reminder that the Moon, though dim and stark, remains an intriguing and visually fascinating place. Sure, the Apollo missions brought back unprecedented images of the lunar landscape, but it’s still the Moon—our Moon—a place we don’t tend to visit very often (with all due respect to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, in operation since 2009, and China’s Chang’e 4 lander Yutu-2 rover, which reached the far side in early 2019).

A high-resolution image of the Moon, as captured by Orion on December 7, 2022.
Photo: NASA

Artemis 1 was like visiting an old friend, though an old friend filled with craters, mountain ranges, and an assortment of other fascinating surface features. What’s more, the lunar environment is a place where we can expect the unexpected, including impossibly picturesque Earthrises illuminated by the Sun. So yes, the Moon remains a worthwhile destination, as we set our sights on the next exciting phase of human space exploration.

More: See the Best Images from the Thrilling Artemis 1 Splashdown

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NASA Says SLS Moon Rocket Exceeded Expectations

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The SLS rocket taking off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA

NASA has conducted a preliminary review of the inaugural Space Launch System launch, saying the rocket met and even exceeded all expectations.

On Wednesday, NASA released its initial analysis of SLS’ performance as it lifted off on November 16, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the Moon for the space agency’s Artemis 1 mission. “The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket was simply eye-watering,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said in a statement. “While our mission with Orion is still underway and we continue to learn over the course of our flight, the rocket’s systems performed as designed and as expected in every case.”

NASA’s 5.75-million-pound rocket took off from Launch Pad 39B at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:47 a.m. ET on November 16. The space agency released a stunning supercut of the launch (see the video below), which includes dramatic POVs from the rocket as it soared into the dark Florida skies.

Rocket Camera Footage from the World’s Most Powerful Rocket

As it fired up its engines, the rocket’s booster motors produced more than 7 million pounds (3.1 million kilograms) of thrust at liftoff. The rocket and its accompanying spacecraft traveled at a speed of more than 4,000 miles per hour (8,000 kilometers per hour) in just two minutes before the booster separated from the rocket. The rocket’s core stage and four RS-25 engines burned through the stage’s 735,000 gallons of propellants in just over eight minutes, NASA reported.

SLS delivered the Orion capsule within about 3 miles (6 kilometers) of its planned orbital altitude and at speeds reaching 17,500 miles per hour (28,160 kilometers per hour), according to NASA. That’s when the rocket’s upper stage performed two burns to first raise Orion’s orbit and then propel it toward the Moon. Afterwards, the upper stage’s single RL-10 engine fired for more than 18 minutes—setting a single duration burn record—to send Orion on its journey to the Moon. “Performance was off by less than 0.3 percent in all cases across the board,” Sarafin said in the statement.

Engineers will continue to study SLS’ performance during the Artemis 1 launch over the next several months as NASA prepares to build the next rocket for the launch of Artemis 2 (currently scheduled for 2024). “With this amazing Moon rocket, we’ve laid the foundation for Artemis and for our long-term presence at the Moon,” John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in the statement. The performance of the rocket and the team supporting its maiden voyage was simply outstanding.”

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SLS’ journey to liftoff was bumpy, with the rocket enduring several delays and two scrubbed launch attempts. The first scrub was due to a faulty sensor, while the second scrub was the result of an unmanageable hydrogen leak.

More: Watch NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Attempt to Break Free From Lunar Orbit

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NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Successfully Breaks Free From Lunar Orbit

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Orion with the Moon and Earth in the background. The image was taken on November 28, when Orion was 268,563 miles away from our home planet.
Photo: NASA

It’s day 16 of the 25.5-day Artemis 1 mission, which means it’s time for the Orion spacecraft to begin its journey back home. The uncrewed capsule departed distant retrograde orbit on Thursday afternoon following a successful exit burn.

Update: December 1, 5:02 p.m. ET: NASA declared a “nominal burn,” which began at 4:54 p.m. ET and lasted for one minute and 45 seconds. Orion will now leave distant retrograde orbit and perform a flyby of the Moon as it charts a course back home.

Orion during the trajectory burn.
Screenshot: NASA TV

Original post follows.

Orion successfully entered into distant retrograde orbit (DRO) on November 25, but now the spacecraft will move to a trajectory that will take it back to Earth. The requisite departure burn is scheduled for today at 4:53 p.m. ET, with NASA coverage starting at 4:30 p.m. ET. You can follow along at NASA TV, YouTube, or at the live stream below.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

The DRO departure burn will send Orion on a trajectory that will take it to within 80 miles (128 kilometers) of the lunar surface, which will happen on December 5, or day 20 of the Artemis 1 mission. During this close lunar approach, Orion will perform another course correction burn at 11:43 a.m. ET. NASA expects to gather more detailed images of the Moon during the flyby, similar to Orion’s first lunar flyby on November 21.

More on this story: NASA’s Orion sends back haunting new views of the Moon’s tortured surface 

Orion made history earlier this week when it reached its maximum distance from Earth. At approximately 268,558 miles (432,194 km) from home, it’s the farthest that any crew-rated vehicle has ventured away from our home planet.

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Orion launched to space atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on November 16. The purpose of this, the debut mission of the Artemis era, is for NASA to demonstrate the new rocket and an uncrewed Orion spacecraft. For Artemis 2, currently scheduled for 2024, NASA will perform a repeat of this mission but with four astronauts along for the ride. This is all prelude to the ultimate goal: landing a man and a woman on the lunar surface later this decade.

Artemis 1 appears to be going exceptionally well, with both SLS and Orion doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. The mission management team met yesterday, giving the “go” to proceed with today’s DRO departure burn.

“We are continuing to collect flight test data and buy down risk for crewed flight,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said in a statement. “We continue to learn how the system is performing, where our margins are, and how to operate and work with the vehicle as an integrated team.”

Orion will reach Earth on December 11 and perform a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 12:42 p.m. ET. Well, assuming the spacecraft survives atmospheric reentry, in which Orion’s heat shield must endure temperatures in excess of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

More: Gifts for the spaceflight enthusiast in your life

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NASA Downplays Launch Pad Damage Caused by SLS Rocket

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Scorching and other minor damage at Launch Pad 39B.
Screenshot: NASA TV

A scorched platform, fried cameras, broken pipes, and a busted elevator are among the casualties of last week’s launch of NASA’s SLS rocket. Mobile Launcher 1 and Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center will require repairs, but NASA says they’ll be ready for the next Artemis mission.

Space Launch System, or SLS, blasted off during the early hours of Wednesday, November 16, sending the Orion capsule on a 25.5-day journey to the Moon and back. It was a picture-perfect launch, and NASA has said as much. Preliminary data from the Artemis 1 flight indicates that SLS performed as well as or even exceeded expectations, Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager, told reporters yesterday.

SLS’s performance deviations were less than 0.3% across the board, and the rocket missed NASA’s target orbital insertion by just 3 nautical miles, according to Sarafin. He reminded reporters that SLS exerted 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and the fact that SLS deviated by 7 feet each second is still “remarkable” in terms of precision. “The results were eye-watering,” he added.

The tower’s elevator doors were blasted clean off.
Screenshot: NASA TV

Photojournalists at Kennedy Space Center have been told to not take photos of Launch Complex 39B for security reasons (i.e., ITAR restrictions; NASA says photos of the now-exposed umbilical plates would represent a security violation), and possibly because NASA doesn’t want to promote the fact that its launch tower was damaged.

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During a press briefing on Friday, Sarafin admitted that the mobile launch tower did incur some damage as a result of the launch, which produced temperatures in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. “We expected to find damage at the pad, and we are finding damage at the pad,” Sarafin said.

Pad camera aflame as SLS blasted off.
Screenshot: NASA TV

At a press briefing held yesterday, the mission management team offered further details and some visuals that detailed the scope of the damage. In addition to new scorch marks on the tower and missing paint on its deck, a number of pad cameras got burned, and some nitrogen and helium supply lines incurred minor damage. Sarafin said blast doors on the tower’s elevators were torn away by the rocket’s shock wave, so “right now the elevators are inoperable and we need to get those back into service.” All said, the damage “that we did see pertains to really, just a couple of areas,” he said, adding that SLS is largely a “very clean system.”

At the same time, the deluge system “did a great job” and the tail mast service umbilicals were “clean inside,” Sarafin explained. He added that repairs are required, but he’s confident everything will be ready for the crewed Artemis 2 mission in 2024. That might seem like plenty of time, but stacking operations for the sequel mission will likely need to start next year.

The mission management team seemed largely unfazed, and it’s entirely possible that the damage is indeed minimal or at least manageable. It might also be true that NASA is doing its best to downplay any damage induced by its new pride-and-joy. Opinions posted to Twitter varied, with some saying the damage is much worse than NASA is willing to admit, with others saying the damage isn’t a big deal and it’s all part of the engineering process. Indeed, surprises should be expected when launching the world’s most powerful rocket, but if the damage is worse than NASA is leading us to believe, then they should admit it.

Back at the lunar ranch, the uncrewed Orion capsule continues to do its thing. The spacecraft performed a close flyby of the Moon yesterday as it steadily works its way into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. Orion will conclude its 25.5-day mission on December 11, when it attempts an atmospheric reentry at Earth and a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Artemis 1 is the first of what NASA hopes will be a series of missions to establish a permanent human presence in the lunar environment.

More: What’s Next for the Orion Spacecraft as It Cruises Toward the Moon



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NASA Opts to Fix SLS Megarocket Hydrogen Leak on Launch Pad

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SLS on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA

NASA is preparing to replace a faulty seal linked to a hydrogen leak that resulted in the second scrubbed launch attempt of SLS on Saturday. The repairs will happen at the launch pad, which is ideal from a testing perspective, but NASA still needs to cart the jumbo rocket back to the assembly building to meet safety requirements.

Technicians will replace a seal on the quick disconnect, an interface that joins the liquid hydrogen fuel line on the mobile launcher to the Space Launch System core stage, according to a brief NASA statement. The teams will also check plate coverings on other umbilicals to rule out hydrogen leaks at those locations. “With seven main umbilical lines, each line may have multiple connection points,” NASA explained.

NASA is attempting an uncrewed mission to the Moon and back, in preparation for a human lunar landing later this decade. But during the early stages of the launch attempt on September 3, an inadvertent command briefly raised the pressure within the system, possibly damaging some components. An unmanageable hydrogen leak resulted in the scrub—the second in a week. The earlier scrub, on Monday, August 29, was also marred by a hydrogen leak, though engineers were able to resolve it. Ultimately, it was a faulty sensor that doomed the first launch attempt.

The unflown SLS rocket remains in a safe configuration, standing tall on Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA is seeking to launch the Artemis 1 mission, in which the rocket will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a journey around the Moon and back. The first launch period, which ran from August 23 to September 6, has ended, forcing a pause in the action. The space agency must now prepare the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket for the third Artemis 1 launch attempt, the date of which has not yet been announced.

Technicians are planning to set up a temporary enclosure around the base of the rocket to protect the hardware from the Florida weather. A benefit of working directly on the pad is that engineers will be able to test the fix under cryogenic conditions. During launch preparations, liquid hydrogen gets pumped through the system at ultra-cold temperatures reaching -423 degrees Fahrenheit (-253 degrees Celsius). This, plus the added high pressure, has the effect of contracting and warping components, which can lead to unwanted and dangerous leaks, particularly around seals.

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As a propellant, hydrogen is efficient but notoriously difficult to reign in. Hydrogen leaks were an all-too-frequent source of scrubs during the Space Shuttle era, and now SLS, which is likewise powered by a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen mixture, appears to be suffering from the same technical hardship.

Engineers mulled returning SLS to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for the required repairs but opted instead to work on the pad. The VAB would’ve presented a more controlled environment to work in, but without the ability to replicate the desired cryogenic conditions for testing (tests inside the VAB have to be run at ambient temperatures). “Performing the work at the pad also allows teams to gather as much data as possible to understand the cause of the issue,” NASA added.

SLS will likely have to return to the VAB, fix or no fix. The Eastern Range, a branch of the U.S. Space Force, requires periodic certification of the rocket’s flight termination system. NASA already received a waiver that extended certification from 20 to 25 days, but it’s not clear if the space agency will request a second waiver, which would be irregular. The Eastern Range oversees launches from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and works to ensure the public’s safety.

At a press briefing on Saturday, Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said “it’s not our decision—it’s the Range’s decision.” He added that a waiver from the Range could keep the rocket on the pad, “but that’s not likely.” So, under the Eastern Range restrictions, and until we hear otherwise from NASA about a second waiver, the rocket must return to the VAB prior to the next launch period.

A third launch attempt in late September or early October remains a distant possibility. The next period opens on September 19 and closes on October 4, with no opportunities to launch on September 29 and 30. For this to work, however, NASA would have to complete its latest fix, run tests, cart SLS back to the VAB for recertification (which involves a very short confidence test), and then cart it back to the launch pad. It’s possible, but ground teams will have to haul ass to make this happen.

Failing this, the third launch period opens on October 17 and closes on October 31, with launch exclusions on October 24, 25, 26, and 28. Two other periods, one in November and one in December, exist within the current calendar year.

There’s still plenty of time for SLS to launch in 2022, but it all depends on how quickly engineers can get a handle on this complex system. SLS is the most powerful rocket that NASA has ever built and is a key component of the space agency’s Artemis program, which seeks a sustained and prolonged human presence at and around the Moon.

More: What to Know About Lunar Gateway, NASA’s Future Moon-Orbiting Space Station.

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Why Hydrogen Leaks Continue to Be a Major Headache for NASA Launches

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SLS on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA

NASA’s Space Launch System is powered by a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Together, these elements provide for a compact and extremely powerful rocket propellant, but these same attributes are also what make this fuel a liability.

The second launch attempt of SLS had to be called off on Saturday, September 3, after engineers failed to resolve a hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect—an 8-inch inlet that connects the liquid hydrogen fuel line to the rocket’s core stage. As a result of the setback, SLS probably won’t launch until October at the earliest. The Artemis 1 mission, in which an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will journey to the Moon and back, will have to wait.

Ground teams were able to fix a hydrogen leak during the first failed launch attempt on Monday, August 29, but the launch was eventually called off after a faulty sensor erroneously indicated that an engine hadn’t reached the required ultra-cold temperature. The leak on Saturday proved to be much more difficult to contain, with engineers attempting three fixes, none of which worked. “This was not a manageable leak,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, told reporters after the scrub.

NASA is still evaluating its next steps, but the rocket must return to the Vehicle Assembly Building to undergo a mandated safety check related to its flight termination system. The rocket may require some hardware fixes on account of an inadvertent command that briefly raised the pressure within the system. The unintended over-pressurization may have contributed to the leaky seal, and it’s something engineers are currently evaluating as a possibility.

Inheriting the hydrogen problem

Hydrogen leaks are nothing new for NASA. Scrubs of Space Shuttle launches happened with upsetting regularity and were often the result of hydrogen leaks. One of the more infamous episodes was “the summer of hydrogen,” when ground teams spent more than six months trying to locate an elusive hydrogen leak that grounded the Shuttle fleet in 1990. SLS is heavily modeled after the Space Shuttle, including the use of liquid hydrogen propellant, so hydrogen-related scrubs could certainly have been predicted. But SLS is what it is, and NASA has little choice but to manage this limitation of its mega Moon rocket.

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Jordan Bimm, a space historian at the University of Chicago, says NASA continues to use liquid hydrogen for political rather than technical reasons.

“Since the creation of NASA in 1958, the agency has used contractors located around the U.S. as a way to maintain broad political support and funding for space exploration in Congress,” Bimm told me. “The first system to use liquid hydrogen was the Centaur rocket developed in the 1950s and 1960s. In 2010, the U.S. Congress, in their authorization act funding NASA, mandated that the Agency use existing technologies from the Shuttle in their next-generation launch system.” To which he added: “This was a political decision meant to maintain contractor jobs in key political districts and from that funding and support in Congress for NASA.”

The first flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, May 7, 1992,
Photo: NASA

This development meant that the RS-25 engine from the retiring Space Shuttle, along with its reliance on a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mixture, would have to be carried over to SLS. In total, NASA managed to collect 16 engines from the retired Shuttles, of which four are currently affixed to the SLS rocket standing on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This situation, said Bimm, is a reminder of the catchphrase from the 1983 film The Right Stuff: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” NASA, he said, “must often prioritize shoring-up political support from Congress to maintain its exploration program.” The ongoing use of RS-25 engines “is another example of how something as mundane as fuel choice can be political and how often the most straightforward and desirable solutions are not politically viable for a large national agency created in the Cold War era of ‘Big Science’,” said Bimm.

Instead of opting for propellants like methane or kerosene, NASA chose to use a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power its heavy-lift rocket. By comparison, SpaceX’s upcoming Starship uses liquid methane, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. “With their sights set on Mars, SpaceX selected liquid methane in the hopes of being able to extract this element [when] on Mars as a form of cost-saving resource utilization,” Bimm explained. The U.S. space agency, perpetually cash-strapped and having to please politicians, was working under a different set of principles when designing SLS.

“Based on current information and analysis, the [proposed SLS design] represents the lowest near-term costs, soonest available, and the least overall risk path to the development of the next, domestic heavy lift launch vehicle,” wrote NASA in a 2011 preliminary project report. “Selecting this SLS architecture would mean that a new liquid engine in the near term would not need to be developed, thus shortening the time to first flight as well as likely minimizing the overall…cost of the SLS.”

The irony is that SLS, which was supposed to fly in 2017, has yet to launch, and its total development costs, including the Orion crew capsule, have now exceeded $50 billion. That excludes the estimated $4.1 billion cost pegged for each launch of SLS. And by inheriting Space Shuttle components, NASA has also inherited the hydrogen problem.

A beneficial but pesky molecule

Hydrogen is extremely useful as a rocket fuel. It’s readily available, clean, lightweight, and, when combined with liquid oxygen, burns with extreme intensity. “In combination with an oxidizer such as liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen yields the highest specific impulse, or efficiency in relation to the amount of propellant consumed, of any known rocket propellant,” according to NASA. When chilled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit (-253 degrees Celsius), hydrogen can be crammed into a rocket, offering a tremendous amount of fuel for the buck. “The advantages of liquid hydrogen as a fuel is its efficiency at storing the energy you want to release to propel the rocket, as well as its low weight, which is always a consideration in spaceflight,” said Bimm.

SLS on the pad at Kennedy Space Center.
Photo: NASA

NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn rocket second stage used liquid hydrogen, as did the Shuttle’s three main engines. Hydrogen is commonly used for second stages (Europe’s heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket is a good example), and as the liquid fuel needed for maneuvering spacecraft in orbit. Rockets that currently use liquid hydrogen include Atlas’s Centaur and Boeing’s Delta III and IV, while Blue Origin’s BE-3 and BE-7 engines also rely on hydrogen.

“The disadvantages of hydrogen are that it is very difficult to move around and control due to the small molecular size of hydrogen which leads to leaks and the need to keep it in a liquid state which requires cooling to extremely low temperatures,” said Bimm. What’s more, hydrogen is highly volatile when in a liquid state, and it can burn in large quantities. As the lightest known element, it’s also very leaky. NASA explains the many challenges of using liquid hydrogen as fuel:

To keep it from evaporating or boiling off, rockets fuelled with liquid hydrogen must be carefully insulated from all sources of heat, such as rocket engine exhaust and air friction during flight through the atmosphere. Once the vehicle reaches space, it must be protected from the radiant heat of the Sun. When liquid hydrogen absorbs heat, it expands rapidly; thus, venting is necessary to prevent the tank from exploding. Metals exposed to the extreme cold of liquid hydrogen become brittle. Moreover, liquid hydrogen can leak through minute pores in welded seams.

Despite these challenges, NASA opted for liquid hydrogen when designing SLS, and now it’s paying the price.

New rocket, same old problems

When tanking SLS, the sudden influx of cryogenic hydrogen causes significant changes to the rocket’s physical structure. The 130-foot-tall (40-meter-tall) hydrogen tank shrinks about 6 inches (152 mm) in length and about 1 inch (25.4 mm) in diameter when filled with the ultra-cold liquid, according to NASA. Components attached to the tank, such as ducts, vent lines, and brackets, must compensate for this sudden contraction. To achieve this, NASA uses connectors with accordion-like bellows, slotted joints, telescoping sections, and ball joint hinges.

But hydrogen—the smallest molecule in the universe—often finds its way through even the tiniest of openings. The fuel lines are particularly problematic, as they cannot be hard-bolted to the rocket. As their name suggests, the quick disconnects, while providing a tight seal, are designed to break free from the rocket during launch. This seal must prevent leakage under high pressures and ultra-cold temperatures, but it also needs to let go as the rocket takes flight. On Saturday, a leak in the vicinity of the quick disconnect reached concentrations well beyond the 4% constraint, exceeding NASA’s flammability limits. Unable to resolve the leak, NASA called the scrub.

That NASA has yet to fully fuel the first and second stages and get deep into the countdown is a genuine cause for concern. The space agency has dealt with hydrogen leaks before, so hopefully its engineers will once again devise a solution to move the project forward.

Still, it’s a frustrating start to the Artemis era. NASA needs SLS as it seeks a permanent and sustainable return to the lunar environment, and as it eyes a future human mission to Mars. NASA is going to have to make SLS work, and it might have to do so one aggravating scrub at a time.

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Scrubbed Artemis 1 Launch Prompts Concerns About Unfinished Rehearsals

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SLS on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA

On Monday, NASA failed in its first attempt to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, with engineers struggling to resolve an engine cooling issue. It’s a wholly unsurprising result, given that NASA was unable to complete a single wet dress rehearsal, of which four were attempted earlier in the year. The space agency appears to be winging it, with the botched launch attempt effectively serving as the fifth wet dress rehearsal, in what is a troubling sign.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) was supposed to take flight on Monday morning, but instead we’re left wondering about the state of the program as a whole. NASA will provide more updates about the rocket later this evening, including whether a launch on Friday or Monday might be possible, or whether the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket will have to make its now-familiar 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.

The unflown SLS megarocket is critical to NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks a permanent and sustainable return to the Moon. For the Artemis 1 mission, an uncrewed Orion rocket will be sent on a multi-week mission to the Moon and back. A successful integrated test of SLS and Orion would set the stage for a crewed Artemis 2 mission in roughly two years, and a crewed mission to land on the lunar surface later this decade.

A launch on Friday seems unlikely, and not just because of the grim weather forecast. NASA’s launch attempt on Monday came nowhere near to succeeding, with the countdown clock proceeding no further than T-40 minutes. An “engine bleed” issue prevented one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines from reaching the required ultra-cold temperature for liftoff, resulting in the scrub.

Thousands of spectators had gathered near the launch site, as did hundreds of reporters. Vice President Kamala Harris was also in attendance at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Everyone left disappointed, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to admit that a launch on Monday was always going to be unlikely. With ground teams failing to complete a single full-fledged wet dress rehearsal, it seemed a stretch to believe that NASA would somehow get everything right during the first attempt at launching the Artemis 1 mission.

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Indeed, the problems started almost immediately on early Monday morning, with the threat of lightning delaying tanking operations by nearly an hour. Working under an accelerated timeline, ground teams proceeded with the six-hour fueling process. A problem emerged when the team transitioned from slow to fast tanking, with a leaky 8-inch inlet valve causing elevated hydrogen readings. The leak was resolved by reverting back to slow fill and going through the process again, allowing the core stage hydrogen tank to be fully topped off.

When using the propellant to chill the four RS-25 engines, however, the team found that one of the engines—engine number three—refused to cool down to the ultra-low temperatures required. Engineers worked their way through previously established troubleshooting guidelines in an attempt to coax more liquid hydrogen into the engine. They tried to increase the pressure in the tank, but this led to the detection of another problem: an apparently leaky vent valve positioned between the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager at NASA, said engineers “wanted to increase the pressure in the tank in order to establish the hydrogen bleed,” but the “vent valve wasn’t cooperating.” That was the final straw, and the team “decided that it was appropriate to declare the scrub because we just weren’t going to make the two-hour window,” Sarafin said, adding that it was “one of those situations where we just knew we needed more time.” He insisted that the problem is not with the engine itself, but rather the “bleed system that thermally conditions the engine.”

The engine bleed issue is one of an unknown number of items that were not tested during the wet dress rehearsals. Upon the conclusion of the final wet dress held in June, NASA officials said 90% of all test objectives were met, while not disclosing any details about the remaining 10%. The final wet dress was not completed due to an unresolved hydrogen leak linked to a faulty quick-connect fitting. For that rehearsal, NASA officials had hoped to run the countdown clock to T-10 seconds, but it never got past T-29 seconds, leaving much about the final launch stage in doubt.

Upon the partial completion of the third wet dress in April, SLS was sent back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, returning to Launch Pad 39B in early June. Across the four rehearsals, engineers recorded a slew of apparently minor issues, a list that includes faulty ventilation fans on the mobile launcher, a misconfigured manual vent valve, overly cold temperatures and frost during propellant loading, a small hydrogen leak on the tail service mast umbilical, issues with the supplier of gaseous nitrogen, and a faulty helium check valve that needed to be replaced.

That said, it was during the fourth wet dress that SLS was finally loaded fully with propellants, with upwards of 755,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen added to the rocket’s two stages. Despite not achieving 10% of test objectives, Tom Whitmeyer, NASA’s exploration systems manager, said “we think that we had a really successful rehearsal,” and that there were risks to running a fifth trial run.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, echoed this earlier sentiment, saying another wet dress rehearsal wasn’t necessary. “We would have taken another cycle of rolling out and back,” he said, and that would’ve introduced further risks, including wear-and-tear. “We won’t know until we know, but we also won’t know until we try,” Free added. “We felt like we were in the best position to try.”

Keith Cowing, editor of NASAWatch.com and a former rocket scientist at NASA, said the space agency treated the first Artemis 1 launch attempt as essentially the fifth wet dress rehearsal. Cowing, who spoke to me by phone, said NASA should’ve done all the required testing up front to avoid these new problems.

“These things happen,” Cowing said. “But this is heritage hardware, with different pieces of rockets that have flown before.” By heritage hardware, Cowing is referring to the fact that the current SLS configuration “utilizes existing hardware from the Space Shuttle inventory, as much as possible, to save cost and expedite the schedule,” according to NASA. These elements include the core stage boosters and engines, along with the Integrated Spacecraft and Payload Element. “NASA shouldn’t expect that it’s all going to work as expected, as there’s going to be problems with the integration,” Cowing told me. To which he added: “Testing is good, and it needs to be done methodically, so when you finally attempt to launch you know what you’ve tested out—instead of using launch attempts as de facto wet dresses.”

Cowing is worried about the state of the program and the already-archaic nature of SLS. Unlike SpaceX rockets, which can be tweaked and repaired on the launch pad, SLS must return to the Vehicle Assembly Building for hardware adjustments (this might be the case with the aforementioned leaky vent valve, but we’ll have to wait for the official word from NASA). And at an estimated cost of $4.1 billion per launch, Cowing predicts that SLS launches will be rare events, citing NASA’s inspector general Paul Martin, who earlier this year described the price tag as “unsustainable.”

NASA officials are likely feeling the pressure, hence the desire to finally get SLS off the ground. It’s making for some awkward theater, however, with Monday’s scrub being a good example. The odds of a launch were exceptionally low (at least that’s how I assessed it), yet NASA had no qualms about publicizing the event and inviting a host of dignitaries and celebrity guests.

The megarocket doesn’t seem ready for launch, yet NASA is doing its best to convince us that it is. Sadly, the “pretend” launch attempt from earlier this week likely won’t be the last.

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Third Test of NASA Megarocket Foiled by Hydrogen Leak

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NASA’s third attempt at a modified rehearsal of the Space Launch System (SLS) came to a halt on Thursday when a leak of liquid hydrogen was detected during tanking operations. The space agency is planning another wet dress rehearsal for the Moon rocket no earlier than April 21.

This is the latest in several setbacks to the rocket’s wet dress rehearsal, including delays due to weather, malfunctioning ventilation fans, and valve issues.

“All the issues that we’re encountering are procedural and lessons learned,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said during a press conference on Friday.

A wet dress rehearsal is when the 322-foot rocket is filled with fuel as it sits on top of a launch pad, and the team runs through a mock countdown to prepare for the day of launch. The rehearsal is critical for the launch of Artemis I, an uncrewed mission to the Moon and back, and the first step to returning humans to the Moon by the year 2026.

This wet dress rehearsal was first scheduled for April 1, but was initially delayed due to technical issues that prevented the crew from loading the rocket up with fuel. Before the next test date on April 11, the team discovered a faulty valve, which led them to modify the rehearsal and plan on only fueling the SLS core stage, and not its upper stage.

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Thursday’s third attempt was unfortunately not the charm, as the team discovered a leak of liquid hydrogen from the tail service mast umbilical, which connects the base of the mobile launcher to the core stage. Liquid hydrogen is one of two propellants used for the rocket, the other being liquid oxygen.

By the time the wet dress rehearsal was shut down, about 49% of the tank was filled with liquid oxygen, and only 5% of the other tank was filled with liquid hydrogen. The team successfully managed to cool down the lines used to load propellant into the upper stage, but were not able to flow any propellant to the stage due an issue with a valve.

Still, the team behind the SLS rocket say they aren’t giving up. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we will finish this test campaign, and that we will look into the hardware and the data will lead us to the next steps,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, said during the teleconference. “We will launch this vehicle… and we will be ready to go fly.”

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NASA Says SLS Is ‘Fine’ After Disrupted Launch Rehearsal

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NASA’s SLS rocket on Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

A critical multi-day test of NASA’s Space Launch System was called off on Monday due to an issue with a cryogenic propellant pressure vent valve. The space agency seeks to resume the wet dress rehearsal in the near future, saying there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the gigantic rocket.

Space is hard, as the saying goes, and that’s certainly true when it comes to preparing a never-flown rocket for a mission to the Moon and back. NASA is currently fitting its much-anticipated SLS rocket for launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but the wet dress rehearsal failed to reach the finish line. The rocket was to be fully prepped—including tanks topped with super-cold propellant and the countdown started—but not launched.

“The mega Moon rocket is fine. We’re working to get it into a launch position,” Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development at NASA, told reporters yesterday during a media teleconference. “We’re just going to have to work our way through it,” he said, adding that the ground teams are “doing a really good job.”

This work is being done in preparation for the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, the inaugural flight of SLS. The next-gen rocket is a critical component of the Artemis program, which seeks to land a man and woman on the Moon later this decade. NASA is currently targeting a June launch, but that will depend on the results of the yet-to-be completed wet dress rehearsal.

The space agency halted the test on Monday after ground teams were unable to proceed with the loading of cryogenic liquid hydrogen propellant. The problem was eventually traced to a manual vent valve that was left in the closed position, an unfortunate configuration that couldn’t be remedied remotely. In a statement, NASA said “the valve positioning has since been corrected.” The team did manage to load approximately 50% of the required cryogenic liquid oxygen propellant into the core stage, which was subsequently drained.

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The misconfigured vent valve, located on the 160 level of the mobile launcher, was hardly the only problem faced by ground teams during the rehearsal, which got underway on Friday, April 1. Four lightning bolts struck the launch pad on Saturday, resulting in a slight delay, but the test came to full stop on Sunday when two fans, which are designed to ventilate the rocket’s 370-foot-tall (113-meter) mobile launcher, glitched out.

Despite this and another problem having to do with the third-party supplier of gaseous nitrogen, NASA resumed the wet dress on Monday. But again, new problems appeared, including a temperature limit issue for the cryogenic liquid oxygen, causing a delay of several hours. Resolved, the rehearsal continued, but the vent valve problem forced the launch director to call it a day at 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday.

NASA is now preparing for the next wet dress attempt, but it’s stepping aside to allow for the launch of the Axiom Space Ax-1 mission, which is set to blast off from Kennedy Space Center on Friday morning. A date for the resumption of the launch rehearsal hasn’t been announced, but NASA officials said it’ll happen soon. The fully integrated rocket, with the Orion capsule up top, continues to stand on launch pad 39B.

Whitmeyer brushed off the less-than-ideal launch rehearsal, saying the ground teams learned “a couple things” from this “highly choreographed dance” that simply need to be cleaned up. “Sometimes you run into something that you weren’t really expecting,” he told reporters, comparing it to puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit. The “vehicle is doing pretty good,” said Whitmeyer, adding that similar issues were encountered during the SLS Green Run tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center and during the development of the Space Shuttle.

At the press conference, Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said the teams have detected “no fundamental design flaws or issues” with the rocket and the problems experienced are best characterized as “nuisance” or “technical issues” that couldn’t be detected during prior testing.

“By putting it all together, you learn where the uncertainties are, and we’re working our way through that,” Sarafin said. “Sometimes you learn that a full system is slightly different than the subscale, but there are no major issues to overcome.” Most of the problems are small or procedural in nature, he said, such as slight adjustments to timing or limits, but “in terms of the rocket, the hardware is fine, the spacecraft is fine—we just gotta get through the test and the test objectives,” he said.

“It was a significant day for us. Our team accomplished quite a bit,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, told reporters. Indeed, while it’s tempting to focus on the negatives, the team did manage to cross many items off their substantial checklist. These included the configuring of Launch Pad 39B and the mobile launcher, powering up Orion and the rocket in launch configuration, checkouts of the guidance, navigation, and control system, and the draining of propellant after the test, among others.

No date has been set for Artemis 1 or the resumption of the wet dress, but the good news is that the rehearsal won’t have to start from scratch. The clock is currently on hold, and the launch system remains in an ideal configuration, NASA officials said. The main priority moving forward will be to finally fill the core and second stage with cryogenic propellants and stop the countdown at T-10 seconds. When asked if SLS will still launch in June, Sarafin said: “We’re not giving up on it yet.”

Have a tip or comment for me about the spaceflight industry? Reach me at george.dvorsky@gizmodo.com.

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Rollout of NASA’s New Megarocket Delayed Until at Least March

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The Orion capsule stacked atop the SLS rocket inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Photo: NASA/Frank Michaux

NASA won’t be performing a wet dress rehearsal of SLS in February as planned. This latest delay to the Artemis I mission means the 322-foot-tall rocket won’t roar through Florida skies until April at the earliest.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), with its Orion crew capsule nestled up top, is going to have to stay inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a little while longer, but hopefully not for too much longer.

In a statement issued this morning, NASA said it’s hoping to transport SLS to Launch Pad 39B in March, at which time Artemis mission controllers can conduct a wet dress rehearsal, in which propellant is added to the rocket’s tanks and then removed. Assuming that goes well, the rocket will go back to the hangar for final tests and then get rolled out once again to the launch pad, this time for real.

The wet dress, as industry folks call it, was supposed to happen in late January, and then in early February, but the timelines keep getting pushed forward. The most recent delay had to do with a glitchy RS-25 engine flight controller, a problem that’s now been resolved (though not yet fully understood—a formal report has yet to be released).

A graphic showing both completed and outstanding items on the Artemis I to-do list.
Graphic: NASA

Speaking to reporters earlier today, Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA, said Artemis teams are “closing things out and getting ready for launch,” but there are still a “lot of little tasks that we have to complete,” as the rollout of SLS is proving to be “logistically challenging,” he said. The team needs additional time to complete these closeout activities, as engineers “are conducting final integrated tests of Orion and SLS along with the ground equipment” prior to the wet dress, according to the NASA press release. A rollout in mid-March seems plausible, Whitmeyer said, but he refrained from committing to an actual date.

Mike Bolger, program manager for exploration ground systems at Kennedy Space Center, said it’s crucial that NASA get the first launch right, as SLS will enable the next 30 years of space exploration, as he explained during today’s briefing. Once aloft, SLS will become the world’s most powerful rocket and a key component of the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon and Mars. Bolger said major progress has been made, such as the countdown test, and teams are currently testing flight termination systems.

“It’s not one specific thing,” added Whitmeyer, reiterating that it’s “just a lot of different things we need to close out,” as it’s a big rocket loaded with all sorts of different systems. Whitmeyer likened this end process to a renovations punch list, saying there’s nothing major left to do, as it’s now a matter of removing the small scratches, so to speak.

The next major milestone will be the wet dress, hopefully in mid-March. Whitmeyer said the purpose of the wet dress is to see how the system performs and then go from there. Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager, said his team is “on track” and will be “ready to go when the hardware is ready.”

Sarafin provided two possible launch windows for Artemis 1: April 8 to 23 and May 7 to 21, but he cautioned that these are subject to change. With the inaugural launch of SLS, mission planners are having to deal with “first-time uncertainties” and also known uncertainties—such as inclement weather— making predictions difficult, he said during the briefing.

The inaugural launch of SLS is known as the Artemis 1 mission, in which an uncrewed Orion will travel 280,000 miles (450,000 km) to the Moon and back without landing on the lunar surface. This will set the stage for Artemis 2, a repeat of the first mission but with an actual crew onboard. The big show will be Artemis 3, in which two NASA astronauts—a woman and a person of color—will attempt to land on the Moon. Artemis 2 is currently scheduled for May 2024, while Artemis 3 won’t happen any earlier than 2025. During today’s briefing, the NASA officials were tight-lipped about the latest delay and whether it would have any bearing on these pre-existing timelines.

Today’s briefing offered very little in terms of specifics, and the general message was that engineers are hard at work on what is a very difficult task. As always, we have to accept these new dates with a grain of salt. NASA, it’s fair to say, is stunningly inept when it comes to crafting viable timelines.

More: Astronomers Confirm a Second Trojan Asteroid Loitering in Earth’s Orbit.

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