NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System likely won’t fly in September. After a fuel leak forced the agency to , there had been some hope the mission could get underway before its current launch window ended on September 6th. That won’t be the case.
“We will not be launching in this launch period,” Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, told a room full of journalists after the events of Saturday morning. “This was not a manageable leak,” Artemis Mission Manager Michael Sarafin added, referring to the “quick disconnect” fitting that gave NASA so much trouble yesterday. Ground crew at Kennedy Space Center attempted to troubleshoot the issue three times before recommending a “no go” for Saturday’s launch.
According to Sarafin, the leak began after one of the fuel lines to Artemis 1’s core booster went through a brief and “inadvertent” overpressurization. An “errant” manual command from Mission Control triggered the incident. As of Saturday, Sarafin said it was too early to know if that was the cause of the fuel leak, but there was enough flammable hydrogen gas near the rocket that it would not have been safe to launch. “We want to be deliberate and careful about drawing conclusions here, because correlation does not equal causation,” he added.
Whatever caused the leak, NASA now needs to replace the non-metallic gasket that was supposed to prevent hydrogen from escaping at the quick disconnect. The agency has two options as to how to proceed. It could either replace the gasket at Launch Pad 39B or the KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
Doing the work on the pad would allow NASA to test the system at cryogenic temperatures. That would give the agency a better idea of how the rocket will behave once it’s ready to launch again. However, NASA would need to build an enclosure around the SLS. At the VAB, meanwhile, the building would act as the enclosure but would limit testing to ambient temperatures only.
In the end, the SLS will likely end up at the VAB no matter what since NASA needs to test the batteries in the vehicle’s flight termination system every 20 days. The system allows the Space Force to destroy the rocket if it flies off course or something else goes awry during flight. NASA can only conduct that testing in the VAB, and the Space Force recently gave the agency a five-day extension on the usual deadline.
All told, Artemis 1’s next earliest launch window opens on September 16th and then closes on October 4th. That opening includes a potential conflict with another mission. Space X’s Crew-5 flight is scheduled to lift off on October 3rd from Kennedy Space Center. Therefore, NASA is more likely to aim for the subsequent window that opens on October 17th and runs until the end of the month. We’ll know more next week when NASA holds another press conference, but NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was adamant the agency wouldn’t attempt to launch Artemis 1 until it feels the SLS is ready to fly. “We do not launch until we think it’s right,” he said. “I look at this as part of our space program, of which safety is at the top of our list.”
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Enlarge / NASA’s SLS rocket may now launch on Saturday, September 3, 2022.
Trevor Mahlmann
After scrubbing a launch attempt of the Space Launch System rocket on Monday, NASA officials said they’re working toward a second attempt to fly the Artemis I mission on Saturday, September 3.
NASA flight controllers halted the first launch attempt after they were unable to verify that one of the SLS rocket’s four main engines—engine no. 3—had been properly cooled to a temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit prior to ignition. The engines must be chilled to very cold temperatures in order to handle the injection of very cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants.
During a news conference on Tuesday evening, NASA’s program manager for the SLS rocket, John Honeycutt, said his engineering team believed the engine had actually cooled down from ambient temperature to near the required level but that it was not properly measured by a faulty temperature sensor.
“The way the sensor is behaving does not line up with the physics of the situation,” Honeycutt said.
The problem for NASA is that the sensor cannot be easily replaced and very likely would necessitate a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few kilometers from the launch pad. This would delay the launch of the rocket at least into October, and the space agency is starting to get concerned about wear and tear on a rocket that has now been stacked for nearly a full year.
Honeycutt said he is confident that liquid hydrogen was flowing into engine no. 3 during the countdown on Monday and that other sensors, including pressure measurements, indicated that the engine was in an environment that would have properly cooled it down. Therefore, he said, his team is working on a “flight rationale” plan that would allow the rocket to launch without getting good data from the temperature sensor on the engine.
“We will be looking at all of the other data we have and [will] use it to make an informed decision,” he said.
Accordingly, NASA’s current plan involves some work at the launch pad today, including the inspection of an area where there was a small hydrogen leak during Monday’s countdown. Then, if officials are satisfied with those inspections and their flight rationale for dealing with the faulty temperature sensor, the agency will start counting down on Thursday. On this timeline, fueling operations would begin on Saturday morning, ahead of the 2:17 pm ET (18:17 UTC) opening of a two-hour launch window. To give the launch team more time to work on the engine chill-down issue, the process known as “conditioning” the engines would begin earlier in the countdown than on Monday.
It was not immediately clear from Tuesday’s news conference what the implications of launching with a warmer-than-normal main engine would be. From a physics standpoint, igniting super-chilled propellants in a warmer-than-anticipated engine would likely severely damage the RS-25 engine’s turbopump, at a minimum. Presumably, therefore, NASA would not launch the SLS rocket without high confidence in its flight rationale.
NASA has until September 5 to launch the booster before it must be taken off the pad for refurbishment. As the September 3 launch date approaches, the space agency will be closely watching the weather forecast in addition to managing technical issues. Although thunderstorms frequently develop along the Florida coast during summer afternoons, Launch Weather Officer Mike Burger said the onshore flow should be fairly strong this weekend. That should push the sea breeze further inland and potentially allow for some opportunities to launch during the two-hour window. If weather scrubs the attempt, NASA is making provisions to attempt a launch on September 5.
Officials insisted during Tuesday’s news conference that they were confident in proceeding toward a launch attempt. Although the space agency heavily promoted the first Artemis I launch attempt on Monday—the launch of an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the Moon was feted with celebrity appearances, social media promotion, and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Florida spaceport—NASA has yet to complete a fueling test of the vehicle.
Despite this, the space agency hopes that it will be able to fully fuel the rocket on Saturday and count all the way down to T-0 without any further issues.
Countdown clocks began ticking Saturday for the maiden launch of NASA new Space Launch System rocket Monday on a long-awaited mission to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule around the moon and back.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female launch director, called her team to their stations in Firing Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center and began the carefully-scripted 46-hour, 10-minute countdown at 10:23 a.m. EDT.
“At this time, we are not working any significant issues,” she told reporters in a pre-flight news conference. “So I’m happy to report that and everything is proceeding on schedule.”
Lightning strikes one of three 600-foot towers protecting launch complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center where NASA’s new SLS moon rocket stands poised for launch Monday at 8:33 a.m. EDT.
Spaceflightnow.com
Shortly after the briefing, lightning struck two of the three 600-foot-tall protective towers around the SLS rocket at launch pad 39B. The strike prompted a review of data to make sure no sensitive electrical systems were affected, but initial checks indicated the strikes were “low magnitude.”
If all goes well, engineers working by remote control plan to start pumping 750,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel into the giant SLS rocket’s core stage at 12:18 a.m. EDT Monday, setting the stage for blastoff at 8:33 a.m., the opening of a two-hour window. Forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of good weather.
The unpiloted 42-day test flight of the $4.1 billion SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule is a major milestone in NASA’s push to return astronauts to the surface of the moon for long-term exploration and to test equipment and procedures needed for eventual multi-year flights to Mars.
“With the Artemis 1 launch on Monday, NASA is at a historic inflection point, poised to begin the most significant series of science and human exploration missions in over a generation,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy.
“We are making sure that the agency’s architecture for human exploration is grounded in a long-term strategic vision, that of sustained U.S. presence on the moon, Mars and throughout the solar system.”
But mission manager Mike Sarafin cautioned, “This is a test flight. We’re mindful that this is a purposeful stress test of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket. It is a new creation, it is a new rocket and a new spacecraft to send humans to the moon on the very next flight.
“This is something that has not been done in over 50 years and it is incredibly difficult. We will learn a great deal from the Artemis 1 test flight … We understand that there’s a lot of excitement about this, but the team is very focused.”
One question mark going into the countdown is the status of a 4-inch liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting that leaked during a practice countdown and fueling test June 20.
The fitting was repaired after the rocket was hauled back to NASA’s assembly building. But hydrogen leaks typically don’t show up unless the equipment is exposed to cryogenic temperatures — in this case, minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit — and that won’t happen until fueling is underway Monday morning.
If a leak is detected that violates safety standards, the launch will be scrubbed. But Blackwell-Thompson said she is confident the fitting will work normally.
“You don’t really get the full test until you do it at cryogenic conditions,” she said in an interview. “So we believe that we have done everything to correct this issue, and certainly on launch day, as part of our loading, we will know for certain.”
Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson is seen in a file photo at her post in Firing Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Control Center.
NASA/Kim Shiflett
The primary goals of the Artemis 1 mission are to verify the giant SLS rocket’s performance, to put the Orion crew capsule through its paces and to bring it safely back to Earth, making sure the capsule’s 16.5-foot-wide heat shield can protect returning astronauts from the high-speed heat of re-entry.
An instrumented, spacesuited mannequin, “Moonikin Campos,” and two artificial female torsos will help scientists measure the radiation environment of deep space, along with the vibrations, sound levels, accelerations, temperatures and pressures in the crew cabin throughout the mission.
If the flight goes well, NASA will press ahead with plans to launch four real astronauts on a looping free-return trajectory around the moon in late 2024, followed by a mission to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole as early as 2025.
That flight will depend in large part on continued funding from Congress, development of new spacesuits for the moonwalkers and SpaceX’s progress developing a moon lander based on the design of its futuristic Starship rocket, which has not yet flown to space.
NASA managers say they’re optimistic, but it’s not yet known how realistic the 2025 landing target might prove to be.
“We’re working as if it is. We have to, otherwise it ends up being an open-ended question that we never reach,” said astronaut Randy Bresnik, who added that SpaceX is “working towards that pace as well.”
“And so that gives great hope that if we’re going to get there, we’ve got the right partner for this first mission,” Bresnik said. “The suits and the Starship, the lunar lander, all go hand in hand. We can’t have one without the other. So we’ll get more clarity in the next few months.”
William Harwood
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
NASA plans to launch the Artemis I mission on Monday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule on a more than month-long journey around the moon. —
The uncrewed launch marks the debut of the most powerful rocket ever assembled and kicks off NASA’s long-awaited return to the moon’s surface. It’s the first mission in NASA’s Artemis lunar program, which is expected to land the agency’s astronauts on the moon by its third mission in 2025.
While Artemis I will not carry astronauts, nor land on the moon, the mission is critical to demonstrating that NASA’s monster rocket and deep space capsule can deliver on their promised abilities. Artemis I has been delayed for years, with the program running billions over budget.
NASA’s Artemis I Moon rocket is rolled out to Launch Pad Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 16, 2022.
Chandan Khanna | AFP | Getty Images
The Artemis I mission represents a crucial turning point in NASA’s moon plans.
Despite the delays, and absorbing much of NASA’s relatively small budget by federal agency standards, the Artemis program has enjoyed strong bipartisan political support.
Officials in 2012 estimated that the SLS rocket would cost $6 billion to develop, debut in 2017 and carry a $500 million per launch price tag. But the rocket is only just now debuting, having cost more than $20 billion to develop, and its per launch price tag has ballooned to $4.1 billion.
NASA’s Inspector General, its internal auditor, earlier this year said Artemis is not the “sustainable” moon program that the agency’s officials say it is. The watchdog found more than $40 billion has already been spent on the program, and projected NASA would spend $93 billion on the effort through 2025 – when the first landing is planned.
But even that 2025 date is in doubt, according to NASA’s Inspector General, which said that development technologies needed to land on the moon’s surface are unlikely to be ready before 2026, at the earliest.
NASA’s Artemis plan relies on the success of another monster rocket as well: SpaceX’s Starship. The agency last year awarded SpaceX with a $2.9 billion contract to develop a moon-specific version of the rocket to serve as the crew lunar lander for the Artemis III mission.
SpaceX began testing of its Starship spacecraft in earnest in 2019, but that rocket has yet to reach orbit.
A host of aerospace contractors across the U.S. support the hardware, infrastructure and software for NASA’s Artemis I – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Jacobs lead the effort. According to NASA, the Artemis program supports about 70,000 jobs around the country.
Multiple NASA centers are involved as well, beyond Kennedy as the launch site – including the DC headquarters, Marshall in Alabama, Stennis in Mississippi, Ames in California, and Langley in Virginia.
In the event that technical issues or weather delay the Aug. 29 launch attempt, NASA has back-up launch dates scheduled for Sept. 2 and Sept 5.
Here’s what you should know about the launch:
The rocket: SLS
NASA’s SLS moon mega rocket topped by the Orion spacecraft rolls out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center on its way to launch complex 39B for a launch rehearsal on March 17, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Paul Hennessy | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Standing as high as a skyscraper at 322 feet tall, the SLS rocket is a complex vehicle built on technologies used and improved on from NASA’s Space Shuttle and Apollo programs.
Fully fueled, SLS weighs 5.7 million pounds, and produces up to 8.8 million pounds of thrust – 15% more than the Saturn V rockets last century. SLS uses four liquid-fueled RS-25 engines, which flew on the Space Shuttle before being refurbished and upgraded, as well as a pair of solid rocket boosters.
SLS’s core stage gets its orange color from the thermal protection system that covers it, which is a spray-on foam insulation. For the first three Artemis missions, NASA is using a variation of SLS known as Block 1. For later missions, NASA plans to roll out an even more powerful variation, known as Block 1B.
The capsule: Orion
NASA’s Orion spacecraft
Source: NASA
NASA’s Orion capsule can carry four astronauts on missions up to 21 days long without docking with another spacecraft. At its core is the crew module, which is designed to endure the harsh conditions of flying into deep space.
After launch, Orion is fueled and propelled by the European Service Module, which was built by the European Space Agency and contractor Airbus.
For Artemis I, there will be three mannequins inside the Orion capsule to collect data via sensors about what astronauts will experience on the trip to-and-from the moon. The return to Earth will be especially crucial, as Orion will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour. A heat shield protects the exterior of Orion, and a set of parachutes will slow it down for a splash landing in the ocean
The mission around the moon
NASAs Artemis I Moon rocket sits at Launch Pad Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 15, 2022.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | AFP | Getty Images
Artemis I will travel about 1.3 million miles over the course of 42 days, spanning several phases. After separating from SLS, the capsule will deploy solar arrays and begin a multi-day journey to the moon – departing from Earth’s orbit in what is known as a “trans-lunar injection.”
NASA plans to fly Orion as close as 60 miles above the moon’s surface, before moving into a wide orbit around the lunar body. To return, Orion will use the moon’s gravity to assist it in setting a trajectory back into Earth’s orbit.
Orion is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean – off the coast of San Diego, California – where a team of NASA and Department of Defense personnel will recover the capsule.
In addition to the mannequins onboard Orion, Artemis I carries several payloads such as cube satellites, technology demonstrations and science investigations.
Enlarge / The SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are ready for launch, NASA says.
Trevor Mahlmann
Welcome to Edition 5.08 of the Rocket Report! This weekend I’ll be traveling to the Artemis I launch in Florida on Monday. It’s remarkable that launch day is finally here for NASA’s big rocket and a big moment for the space agency, which has not launched its own rocket since 2011, and the final flight of the space shuttle. Here’s hoping everything goes well with the launch and Orion’s flight to the Moon.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Firefly sets September 11 launch date. The Texas-based launch company announced this week the launch window for the second flight of its Alpha rocket. The window for the launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California opens at 3 pm local Pacific time (22:00 UTC). Alpha’s first test flight, in September 2021, ended in failure 150 seconds into the flight after a problem with one of the rocket’s four main Reaver engines.
Some tiny tag-alongs … For its second demonstration flight, Alpha will attempt to launch multiple satellites to low Earth orbit at an altitude of 300 km. Payloads include a 3U Cubesat for NASA and a 3U Cubesat for Teachers in Space to collect atmospheric data for the education community. The launch will be hosted and streamed by Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Relativity completes 20-second stage test. This week Relativity chief executive Tim Ellis said the company completed a 20-second test firing of its Terran 1 rocket’s first stage. In doing so, Ellis said on Twitter that the company remains on track to become the first liquid oxygen-methane rocket to reach orbit. The company completed the test on its launch mount at Launch Complex 16 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Print your way to space … The full video of the test, with sound, is quite excellent, and I recommend watching it. Next up for the company is completing a full-duration hot-fire test of the vehicle, which is the final major step before the rocket’s debut launch. Relativity is working in parallel to obtain the necessary licenses to launch the rocket, which is capable of lifting more than 1 metric ton to orbit.
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.
Canadian spaceport completes design review. The spaceport firm Maritime Launch Services has completed the preliminary design review for its proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia, SpaceQ reports. The spaceport, if completed, would be Canada’s first active launch site in decades and its only current orbital launch site. The Nova Scotia site could support a suborbital launch in 2023, followed by an orbital attempt in 2024, on its current timeline.
Construction to begin soon … Stephen Matier, president and CEO of Maritime Launch Services, said the design review encompasses “the integration facility, processing facility area, the launch pad area, the launch control center, all the aspects of transportation and supply of material propellants… every aspect of the project is wrapped up in the term.” An access road has already been completed, with construction expected to start “imminently,” Matier said. (submitted by JS)
A group of NASA astronauts shared an incredible series of images showing them performing a flyby of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket while it sits waiting on the launch pad ahead of its scheduled Artemis 1 launch on Aug. 29.
The images, shared on Twitter by astronauts Andrew Morgan and Reid Wiseman and astronaut candidate Christina Birch, show four NASA T-38 trainer jets flying in formation recently above both the 322-foot-tall (98 meters) SLS megarocket at Launch Complex 39B and the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission: Live updates
“This week we flew over @NASAArtemis, thanking the @nasa centers across the country that put this Moon rocket on @NASAKennedy’s pad and celebrating the upcoming test flight!” Morgan, who flew on three missions aboard the International Space Station, wrote on Twitter (opens in new tab) on Thursday (Aug. 25).
A pair of NASA T-38 jets fly past the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. (Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel)
Wiseman, current head of NASA’s astronaut office, was much less verbose. “We. Are. Going! #Artemis1,” reads Wiseman’s tweet (opens in new tab) of the flyby image published Wednesday (Aug. 24).
T-38 jets fly past NASA’s SLS rocket at Kennedy Space Center. (Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel)
Birch added that the formation of two-seater T-38s included fellow astronaut candidates Jack Hathaway and Nichole “Vapor” Ayers.
NASA has used Northrop T-38 Talon jets as training aircraft and chase planes for over five decades. The twin-seat trainer can fly at supersonic speeds up to Mach 1.6 and reach altitudes up to 40,000 feet, higher than most commercial airliners. “The T-38 is a great aircraft for what we need at NASA because it’s fast, it’s high-performance and it’s very simple,” retired NASA astronaut and former International Space Station Commander Terry Virts said in a NASA statement in 2011 (opens in new tab). “It’s safe and it’s known. So compared to other airplanes, it’s definitely one of the best.”
Four T-38 Talons fly by NASA’s Space Launch System Block 1 rocket at Kennedy Space Center. (Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel)
As of Thursday (Aug. 25), the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron has predicted a 70% chance (opens in new tab) of favorable weather on Monday (Aug. 29) for the launch of Artemis 1, which will send an uncrewed Orion capsule on a journey to lunar orbit and back.
Follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab)or onFacebook (opens in new tab).
Okay, space fans. The moment is almost here. NASA is about to launch its next-generation rocket for the first time and send it hurtling out beyond the Moon. It’s going to be a wild time, but honestly, there’s been a lot going on here on Earth, too — and if you’re anything like me, you might be in the market for a quick refresher on what exactly is going down when NASA’s next big thing blasts off.
Consider this your SLS cheat sheet as NASA gears up for its big launch on August 29th.
What is SLS?
It stands for Space Launch System.
That seems like a very boring name.
It is. But it is also extremely functional, seeing as it refers to a system for launching things into space.
What kinds of things can SLS launch?
So many things! This version of SLS has four big rocket engines and two solid-state boosters and can carry about 27 metric tons up to the general vicinity of the Moon. That’s more than the space shuttle could carry to low earth orbit but less than the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket could carry to the Moon. Future versions of SLS will be able to haul even more.
The SLS and Orion rolling to the launch padImage: NASA / Kim Shiflett
Whoa, how will it do that?
It’s going to light up like a 5.75 million-pound firework. Those boosters — the twin white cylinders on either side of the rocket — are 17 stories high and are packed with a solid rocket fuel called polybutadiene acrylonitrile. They burn through six tons of this fuel every second, according to NASA. In case you were wondering what this is in relation to jumbo jets, NASA has you covered. Each one “generates more thrust than 14 four-engine jumbo commercial airliners.” The two boosters will generate 75 percent of the boom that gets the rocket and its cargo off the ground.
But that’s only part of the rocket’s power. There’s also the 212-foot-tall core stage — the big orange part of the rocket. On launch day, it will be packed with 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and 196,000 of liquid oxygen, which will fuel the four engines at the bottom.
All of that fuel and engineering translates to a boatload of power. Within 8.5 minutes of launch, SLS and Orion capsule that it’s carrying will be traveling at speeds of around 17,000 miles per hour.
What is the Orion capsule?
I know, another name. So, SLS will be carrying a spacecraft called Orion. (In pictures, it’s the white part at the top of the rocket.) It is not related in any way to the Orion gaming gadget.
Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge
Orion is designed for missions beyond Earth’s orbit, with potential destinations of the Moon or Mars. It’s got an extremely shiny look that will help it cope with extreme temperatures in space, a next-generation heat shield to cope with reentering the atmosphere, and a launch abort system that could blast astronauts to safety if anything went wrong during launch. In space, it can support four people on a mission for 21 days.
Orion flew to space before in a test flight in 2014. It’s been through a lot of testing since then in preparation for this next flight, which has been delayed many, many times. (More on those delays later.) Back in 2020, it looked like there might be a chance that it would get delayed yet again when some engineers discovered a problem with a power component for the spacecraft. Trying to fix it would have taken months, and they have backup systems available, so they will be flying the spacecraft as-is.
Are there going to be people inside Orion?
Nope. There will be three mannequins strapped inside, which look varying degrees of terrifying. One is named Commander Moonikin Campos, and it will wear one of the flight suits that astronauts will wear on future missions. It will be accompanied by the limbless Helga and Zohar, which will carry radiation detectors to figure out how much radiation astronauts might be exposed to during a trip to the Moon. Zohar will be wearing a vest that can protect against radiation. Helga won’t. Good luck, Helga.
Helga and Zohar strapped into their seats in Orion. Commander Moonikin Campos’ feet are visible in the top left.Image: NASA / Frank Michaux
One of the big reasons that there won’t be astronauts on board is that this entire launch is one giant test flight. It’s the first time that the SLS is having its big space debut, and putting people on a rocket before seeing if it can actually work feels like an extremely bad choice. (NASA very briefly considered doing exactly that, then decided against it.) Instead, Artemis I will be all about testing how well Orion and SLS work and pushing them to their limits before people get on board.
What is Artemis I?
Oh boy, yet another name! Artemis I is the mission that SLS and Orion are going on. Its primary goal is to make sure that Orion can work in space and that it can deliver astronauts safely back to Earth after the mission is over. As a bonus, it will fly farther from Earth than any spacecraft designed for humans has ever flown before, reaching a distance of 280,000 miles away from Earth.
During the course of its 42-day mission, it will travel a grand total of about 1.3 million miles, heading out to the Moon, then entering orbit around the Moon for several days before returning back to Earth. The maps of this mission look like an extremely large and very messy figure 8. If the launch goes as planned on August 29th, it should splash back down on Earth on October 10th.
Artemis I’s itinerary.Image: NASA
Are there other Artemis missions?
Yep! If all goes well with Artemis I, NASA will move on to Artemis II, which will be the first flight of the SLS / Orion combo with crew on board. It’s also the first crewed mission back to the Moon since the Apollo era, but the astronauts onboard won’t land on the Moon — they’ll just orbit for a while, then return to Earth.
The ultimate goal is for NASA to land the first woman on the Moon during the Artemis III mission, which is still in the works. In August, NASA announced several potential landing sites near the Moon’s South Pole.
Yeah, that’s ringing a bell. How long has this been in the works?
The Artemis program? Since 2019, when then-Vice President Mike Pence announced that NASA was headed back to the Moon and would get there by 2024.
Fun fact! It got its name because in mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, and there is just a ton of nostalgia for the Apollo missions, for better or for worse.
So are they going to make it back to the Moon by 2024?
Absolutely not. They’re shooting for 2025 at this point, but that’s still pretty ambitious.
What about the SLS project? I feel like I’ve been hearing about that for longer.
You definitely have. Its origins date back to around 2010, when the US was shifting away from the space shuttle and toward other modes of space transportation. Parts of it started out as a project called Constellation that was canceled for being way too expensive. Then it was revived as SLS in 2010, with the goal of launching in 2017. That slipped to 2018 and kept slipping, as the project became notoriously delayed and over budget.
For a full look at the history, check out our story here.
But… they’re ready to go now?
Looks like it! Even though their dress rehearsal was cut short in June due to a hydrogen leak, engineers think that they’ve fixed all last-minute to-do’s for the rocket, and NASA has decided that it is a go for launch.
What else will be on board?
In addition to Helga, Zohar, and Commander Moonikin Campos, there will be a few other science experiments aboard Artemis I. During the mission, the spacecraft will deploy 10 small satellites called CubeSats. Some will map ice on the lunar surface, one will deploy a giant solar sail and head off to an asteroid, and one will attempt to land on the Moon. On board, there will also be a science experiment that will carry yeast where no yeast has gone before in an attempt to study deep-space radiation.
Shaun the sheep poses with a model of the Orion capsuleImage: ESA / Aardman
Also inside the capsule will be a plush sheep named Shaun. Also, Snoopy. Both Shaun and Snoopy will serve as zero-gravity indicators, floating around Orion once it reaches microgravity.
Enlarge / NASA’s Space Launch System Rocket at LC-39B, preparing to lift off at 8:33 am ET on August 29th, 2022.
Trevor Mahlmann
President Eisenhower signed the law establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 29, 1958. At the time, the United States had put about 30 kg of small satellites into orbit. Less than 11 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon.
President Obama signed a NASA Authorization Act on October 11, 2010. Among its provisions, the law called on NASA to create the Space Launch System rocket and have it ready for launch in 2016. It seemed reasonable. At the time, NASA had been launching rockets, including very large ones, for half a century. And in some sense, this new SLS rocket was already built.
The most challenging aspect of almost any launch vehicle is its engines. No problem—the SLS rocket would use engines left over from the space shuttle program. Its side-mounted boosters would be slightly larger versions of those that powered the shuttle for three decades. The newest part of the vehicle would be its large core stage, housing liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel tanks to feed the rocket’s four main engines. But even this component was derivative. The core stage’s 8.4-meter diameter was identical to the space shuttle’s external tank, which carried the same propellants for the shuttle’s main engines.
Alas, construction wasn’t that easy. NASA’s SLS rocket program has been a hot mess almost from the beginning. It has been efficient at precisely one thing, spreading jobs around to large aerospace contractors in the states of key congressional committee leaders. Because of this, lawmakers have overlooked years of delays, a more than doubling in development costs to above $20 billion, and the availability of far cheaper and reusable rockets built by the private sector.
So here we are, nearly a dozen years after that authorization act was signed, and NASA is finally ready to launch the SLS rocket. It took the agency 11 years to go from nothing to the Moon. It has taken 12 years to go from having all the building blocks for a rocket to having it on the launch pad, ready for an uncrewed test flight.
I have decidedly mixed emotions.
Enlarge / The side-mounted boosters on the SLS rocket are derived from the space shuttle program
Trevor Mahlmann
With the launch just days away, I am incredibly happy for the people at NASA and the space companies that have worked hard, cut through the bureaucracy, managed thousands of requirements, and actually got this rocket built. And I’m eager to see it fly. Who doesn’t want to watch a huge, Brobdingnagian rocket consume millions of kilograms of fuel and break the surly bonds of Earth’s gravity?
On the less happy side, it remains difficult to celebrate a rocket that, in many ways, is responsible for a lost decade of US space exploration. The financial costs of the program have been enormous. Between the rocket, its ground systems, and the Orion spacecraft launching on top of the stack, NASA has spent tens of billions of dollars. But I would argue that the opportunity costs are higher. For a decade, Congress pushed NASA’s exploration focus toward an Apollo-like program, with a massive launch vehicle that is utterly expended, using 1970s technology in its engines, tanks, and boosters.
Effectively, NASA was told to look backward when this country’s vibrant commercial space industry was ready to push toward sustainable spaceflight by building big rockets and landing them—or storing propellant in space or building reusable tugs to go back and forth between the Earth and Moon. It’s as if Congress told NASA to keep printing newspapers in a world with broadband Internet.
It didn’t have to be this way. In fact, a handful of visionary space policy leaders tried to stop the wastefulness but were beaten back by the defense industry and its allies in Congress.
For me personally, this is also the end of an era. In many ways, this rocket has mirrored my career as a journalist and writer covering the space industry. So as we approach this momentous launch, I want to tell the story—the real story—about where this came from and where it’s going. I will make the case that the SLS rocket is the worst thing, and perhaps simultaneously the best thing, to ever happen to NASA.
I believe this story can still have a happy ending.
NASA’s huge Artemis 1 rocket is counting down to a planned Aug. 29 launch to the moon and when it does, you’ll be able to watch the historic mission live online for free.
The space agency will host a series of Artemis 1 webcasts this week and next leading up to the uncrewed launch on NASA’s first Space Launch System megarocket from Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The briefings start on Monday, Aug. 22, and run through launch day and include special guests like actors Chris Evans, Jack Black and Keke Palmer. You can already see live views of the Artemis 1 moon rocket atop its pad in the live fe
The last time a rocket this powerful thundered off a KSC pad was back in 1973 when a Saturn V moon rocket carried Skylab into orbit, marking the end of the Apollo era, so this month’s event should be quite a show.
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission: Live updates
According to NASA (opens in new tab), the space agency will deliver comprehensive coverage of prelaunch, launch, and postlaunch activities for Artemis I when it comes time to light the candle. This momentous uncrewed dress rehearsal around the moon will clear the trail for a crewed moon-bound flight test with 2024’s Artemis 2, and an actual lunar landing by 2025 as part of Artemis 3.
Those lucky enough to be joining the Artemis 1 spectacle in Florida will be treated to the shock and awe of 8.8 million pounds of thrust fighting gravity and propelling the sleek SLS rocket and Orion space capsule into the heavens. For the rest of us, NASA just released its schedule for the free livestream broadcast to watch the mission from the safety and comfort of our own homes.
Live event coverage will air on Space.com courtesy of NASA Television, the NASA mobile app (opens in new tab), and the agency’s official website (opens in new tab), with prelaunch activities on Monday, Aug. 22. For anxious toe-tappers, the launch countdown (opens in new tab)starts Saturday, Aug. 27, at 10:23 a.m. ET.
Sure, it might not provide the same epic experience that the Earth-shuddering blastoff will offer, but it’s the next best thing and you don’t have to worry about the heat, parking hassles, or huge crowds.
The stages of the Artemis 1 mission to the moon. (Image credit: NASA)
On launch day, a live broadcast of the festivities includes celebrity appearances by Jack Black, Chris Evans, and Keke Palmer, as well as a patriotic performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” courtesy of Josh Groban and Herbie Hancock. Then we’ll hear “America the Beautiful” played by The Philadelphia Orchestra and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Here’s a rundown of the launch activities leading up to liftoff.
Monday, Aug. 22: Artemis 1 flight readiness review
One week from launch, on Monday, Aug. 22, NASA Artemis 1 mission managers will meet in a day-long Flight Readiness Review to decide of the Artemis 1 SLS rocket is ready for launch.
At 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT), NASA will hold a press conference to report on the results of that meeting and if the Artemis 1 moon rocket is still on track for its Aug. 29 liftoff.
Here’s who will appear in that briefing.
Janet Petro, director, Kennedy Space Center
Jim Free, associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, NASA Headquarters
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, Exploration Ground Systems Program, Kennedy
Howard Hu, Orion Program manager, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
John Honeycutt, Space Launch System Program manager, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
Friday, Aug. 26: NASA briefing on space industry exploration
On Friday, Aug. 26, NASA will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) to highlight the role of commercial space industry on the Artemis 1 mission.
The briefing will feature experts from NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing (which built the Space Launch System), Jacobs aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Airbus.
Jim Free, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
Jeff Zotti, RS-25 program director, Aerojet Rocketdyne
Jennifer Boland-Masterson, director of operations, Michoud Assembly Facility, Boeing
Randy Lycans, vice president/general manager of NASA Enterprise Solutions, Jacobs
Kelly DeFazio, director of Orion production, Lockheed Martin
Doug Hurley, senior director of business development, Northrop Grumman
Ralf Zimmermann, head of Moon programs and Orion European Service Module, Airbus
Saturday, Aug. 27: NASA Artemis 1 countdown begins
The Artemis 1 launch countdown will begin at 10:23 a.m. EDT (1423 GMT) on Saturday, Aug. 27. Flight controllers will be called to their stations on this day and begin the two-day countdown to the final launch target.
Saturday, Aug. 27: NASA Artemis 1 prelaunch briefing
On Saturday, Aug. 27, NASA will hold a two briefings to discuss the Artemis 1 mission. The first will be at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), when mission managers will meet to review the launch plan for Artemis 1 as well as its mission goals.
The briefing will include an overview of the mission, a look at the weather forecast and NASA’s backup plans in case an Aug. 29 launch date is delayed. Backup days for the mission are currently targeted for Sept. 2 and Sept. 5.
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission explained in photos
Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, NASA Headquarters
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, Exploration Ground Systems Program, Kennedy
Judd Freiling, ascent and entry flight director, Johnson
Rick LaBrode, lead flight director, Johnson
Melissa Jones, recovery director, Exploration Ground Systems Program, Kennedy
Melody Lovin, weather officer, Space Launch Delta 45
Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
Saturday, Aug. 27: NASA Artemis Moon to Mars briefing
After the prelaunch briefing, NASA will hold a press conference on Saturday, Aug. 27 at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT), led by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson to discuss the agency’s plans to explore the moon, Mars and beyond..
NASA has billed the talk as a “briefing on the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration plans” and it will feature presentations by Nelson and representatives from across the agency’s exploration, space technology and spaceflight branches to outline plans to reach Mars from the moon under the Artemis program.
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator
Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy
Jim Free, NASA associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate
Kathy Lueders, NASA associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate
Prasun Desai, NASA deputy associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate
Randy Bresnik, NASA astronaut
Sunday, Aug. 28: NASA Artemis 1 countdown update
On Sunday, Aug. 28, NASA will hold a short briefing at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) to give an update on the launch progress for Artemis 1.
The briefing will review the mission’s countdown status with Jeff Spaulding, NASA’s Artemis 1 senior test director, as well as Melody Lovin, weather officer with Space Launch Delta 45 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station near KSC.
Jeff Spaulding, Artemis I senior NASA test director
Melody Lovin, weather officer, Space Launch Delta 45
Monday, Aug. 29: 12 a.m. EDT – Artemis 1 Launch Day – Fueling coverage
Monday, Aug. 29, is the first launch attempt for NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission and it’s going to be a LONG day.
NASA’s webcast activities begin at 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT), with a live webcast on the fueling operations, which NASA calls tanking, of the Space Launch System. The core stage of the SLS rocket can hold about 730,000 gallons of super-cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, so loading that propellant will take hours.
Monday, Aug. 29: 6:30 a.m. ET- Full Artemis 1 launch coverage
NASA’s full launch coverage webcast for Artemis 1 will begin on Aug. 29 at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT). This part of the agency’s webcast will be in English.
“Launch coverage will continue through translunar injection and spacecraft separation, setting Orion on its path to the moon,” NASA wrote in a description.
Monday, Aug. 29: 7:30 a.m. ET- Artemis 1 Spanish broadcast
At 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT), NASA’s Spanish-language webcast will begin to chronicle the Artemis 1 mission.
The webcast will run through launch and the first 15 minutes of the mission after liftoff. Following the launch, you can get Spanish-language updates on Artemis 1 through the NASA en español social media channels.
Saturday, Aug. 29: 8:33 a.m. EDT – Artemis 1 Liftoff
This is the moment of truth for NASA’s Artemis 1 mission: the first launch window for the Space Launch System rocket.
NASA actually has a two-hour window in which to try to launch the SLS booster, so liftoff could occur anytime between 8:33 a.m. EDT and 10:33 a.m. EDT (1233-1433 GMT), weather and technical systems permitting.
Saturday, Aug. 29: 12 p.m. ET – Artemis 1 post-launch news conference
After launch, NASA will hold a post-launch press conference scheduled for no earlier than 1 hour after the launch broadcast ends. Currently, NASA is eyeing a 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) start time for this briefing, but that could change as the day progresses.
Below are the NASA officials scheduled to speak in the briefing.
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator
Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, NASA Headquarters
Mike Bolger, Exploration Ground Systems Program manager, Kennedy
Howard Hu, Orion Program manager, Johnson
John Honeycutt, Space Launch System Program manager, Marshall
Saturday, Aug. 29: 4 p.m. EDT – Orion trajectory burn
If all goes well with the launch, NASA will host a 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) webcast to highlight the first trajectory maneuver to send the Artemis 1 Orion beyond Earth orbit and off to the moon.
The time of this coverage may change depending on the launch time of the Artemis 1 mission.
Saturday, Aug. 29: 5:30 p.m. EDT – Orion views of the Earth
The last major Artemis 1 launch day event is currently scheduled for 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT), when the Orion spacecraft is expected to beam its first views of the Earth from space.
Like the outbound trajectory maneuver, the timing of this broadcast is subject to change depending on the exact launch time and the health of the Orion spacecraft.
For a complete rundown of all the talks and activities surrounding Artemis 1’s thrilling flight, check out NASA’s detailed coverage schedule.
Whether staking out a sweet in-person spot to watch Artemis 1 or taking it all in via NASA’s livestream options, it’s destined to be the pyrotechnics show of the summer!
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Space Launch System made its third trip to the launch pad Aug. 17, this time with the intent of lifting by early next month.
The mobile launch platform carrying the SLS and its Orion spacecraft left the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center at approximately 10 p.m. Eastern Aug. 16, arriving at Launch Complex 39B at 8 a.m. Eastern Aug. 17.
This was the third rollout of the SLS/Orion stack, after previous rollouts in March and June for countdown rehearsals, and took place with little fanfare. In those earlier tests, known as wet dress rehearsals (WDRs), the rocket’s core and upper stages were loaded with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants and the vehicle went through a countdown intended to stop just before the core stage’s engines ignited. NASA carried out four WDRs in April and June, declaring success after the fourth test June 20 even though it stopped early.
Now that the vehicle is back on the pad, prelaunch preparations will be “very similar to what we’ve done in the past,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA Artemis 1 launch director, said during an Aug. 3 briefing. NASA planned an 11-day campaign of work at the pad to prepare for the launch, but the vehicle rolled out a day early, giving some schedule margin in the event of any weather or technical issues.
That work includes checking connections for data, power and other commodities at the pad, as well as servicing the solid rocket boosters, whose hydraulic power units will be fueled with hydrazine to operate their thrust vector control systems. There will also be “program-specific engineering tests” of the vehicle at the pad, she said.
For the first launch opportunity, a two-hour window that opens at 8:33 a.m. Eastern Aug. 29, the countdown will start with a “call to stations” for personnel nearly 48 hours earlier with tanking of the vehicle starting about eight hours before liftoff.
One change from the WDRs, Blackwell-Thompson said, is that a hold in the countdown before tanking starts is now an hour longer. “As part of our wet dress loading operations, we found that we needed a little additional time and we wanted to make sure we were all set up and configured for an on-time launch,” she said.
“I suspect we’ll continue to learn some things as we continue to go through our launch countdown,” she said, “but I am very pleased with where we are in our preparations.”
A launch on Aug. 29 would start a 42-day Artemis 1 mission, sending the Orion spacecraft into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon to test the spacecraft before returning to Earth to splash down off the coast of San Diego, California. Backup launch opportunities are on Sept. 2, with a two-hour window that opens at 12:48 p.m. Eastern; and Sept. 5, with a 90-minute window that opens at 5:12 p.m. Eastern.
