Is NASA’s SLS Doomed?
 

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/i...y-july-29-2021

NASA’ big tardy rocket isn’t doomed - but it seem’s kinda doomed

When the NASA space shuttle program ended pretty much a decade ago last week (the final mission was on July 21, 2011), it was hard to think about what would come next, especially if you grew up with the inspiring NASA live footage of the shuttle going to and returning to Earth.

Would a private company make rockets and sell their services to NASA? That kind of thinking might’ve seemed dangerous a decade ago, trusting a privately owned company with the lofty purposes of NASA.

And yet, NASA’s major rocket system to send humans and space science back into the great unknown may be doomed. The Space Launch System, or SLS for short, “would be the most powerful rocket we've ever built,” NASA has proclaimed. The problem is that it’s getting more expensive and further behind schedule.

Meanwhile, companies like SpaceX are getting results with engineering and developing their own rockets.

So, if you’re NASA, you don’t pause the mission progress to wait for your own tardy rocket. You contract with SpaceX. And that could maybe spell doom for SLS. It’s our lead story today. Keep scrolling to read more about it in a story from the new guy, Jon Kelvey.

https://www.inverse.com/science/spac...ontract-europa

SPACEX: NASA’s Europa deal reveals the tricky politics of space rockets

Hidden within the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa, there is an ocean — one which may host some form of life. Exploring this watery world is one of NASA’s top priorities for the next decade. That’s why the agency is pouring so much effort into a mission to explore the moon’s oceans — the Europa Clipper — which will launch in October 2024.

But earlier this month, NASA announced it is altering the mission in one critical way. The Clipper will launch SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and not atop NASA’s flagship launch vehicle, the Space Launch System.

The decision raises new questions about the future of the Space Launch System, which NASA continues to say is a cornerstone of its Artemis program to return humans to the Moon by 2024. It also tells us a lot about the symbiotic relationship between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the agency.…..

That doesn’t mean the SLS won’t fly at all, though. In fact, Forczyk is certain it will.

“SLS has from the beginning been a political rocket,” she says. “A rocket that the Senate had decided that NASA needed to build to keep NASA expertise and contractor jobs in certain key districts.”

So long as powerful political supporters of the SLS, such as Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson are in office, the rocket will continue to be developed — for the time being anyway….

When first announced in 2011, the vision was to make the first uncrewed tests flights with SLS in late 2017. Almost four years after that date, NASA is still in the middle of assembling this 188,000-pound behemoth as of June 2021.

In addition to being behind schedule, the SLS is also projected to be more expensive to operate than the SpaceX Falcon Heavy. SLS launches will run around $2 billion, while the reusable Falcon Heavy launches for $90 million a pop.

These differences flow directly from the SLS’s status as a political project rather than a technical solution to the problem of lofting people and cargo into orbit, according to Forcyzk.

NASA states that people and material from all 50 U.S. states will help to build the SLS. This is “because it is politically beneficial to mention how NASA touches all 50 states, but it is not a way to build a cost-effective rocket,” Forcyzk says.

SpaceX and other private launch providers are not so constrained by patriotism and politics.

This is a reminder that NASA is a political organization run by the U.S. government, Forczyk says. But it’s also a science and technology organization.

“[NASA] will choose the rocket that is the best available, assuming that Congress doesn’t interfere otherwise” for the mission at hand, she says. “Which is exactly what [NASA has] just done with the Europa Clipper,” she adds….

WHAT’S NEXT — If all goes according to plan, the Europa Clipper will launch for Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy in October 2024 and reached the Jupiter system by April 2030.

An SLS-powered Clipper, if NASA had gone that route, could have powered the Europa Clipper to Jupiter a little faster, by August 2027, according to a presentation made by Europa Clipper Project Scientist Robert Pappalardo in 2020.

But the SLS will be sticking to the Artemis program, with Artemis I scheduled to launch an uncrewed Orion space capsule to the Moon, orbit it, and then come back to Earth in November 2021. It will then power the Artemis II and III missions in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Of course, the rocket is still not fully built at the time of writing.

Ultimately, Forczyk believes it would take a lot to keep the SLS rocket from being the one to fly these critical Artemis missions to space — albeit maybe not this year.

“The only thing I can see happening that would kill it would be complete, absolute complete failure,” she says, “and that would be unfortunate because a lot of really good people have worked on the program.”

It's a political rocket to nowhere. Other than as a jobs and contractor shareholder enrichment program, it serves no purpose. Will it be able to do things Falcon Heavy and Starship can't do? Maybe. Cost effective and timely? Absolutely not.

IMHO, this is what you get when large programs are subjected to political whims--constantly changing along with the politics of the day and therefore hugely expensive and ridiculously stretched out development.

How different things were back in the 60s, when there was a goal (beat the Soviets to the moon) and a deadline (before this decade is out). Apparently beating the Chinese to the moon doesn't provide the same motivation.

This is ridiculous. Look at the cost to put a crewed Artemis in orbit around the moon, in a single use launcher and capsule, to transfer to a Starship lander waiting for them.

Then look at the scale of the reusable Starship missions to get the lander there - and keep and refuel it there for future missions at a fraction of the cost.

And all on the taxpayers dollars… Not only is the entire Starship program 1/40 the cost - the taxpayer isn’t paying for it.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...sion-jtlcqsxt9

Artemis: Nasa’s return to moon to cost an ‘unsustainable’ $4.1bn per mission

America’s return to the moon will cost more than $4.1 billion per mission, making it unsustainable in the long term, the space agency’s inspector-general has warned.

The total cost of Nasa’s lunar programme, Artemis, will have ballooned to $93 billion by 2025 — before it even gets its new rocket off the planet for a test flight.

“That is a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable,” Paul Martin, the space agency’s inspector-general, told a hearing of the House space and aeronautics subcommittee.

The warning throws into question the long-term future of Nasa’s new Space Launch System (SLS) — the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V that flew humans to the moon from 1968 to 1972 under the Apollo programme.

The ever-increasing costs are unlikely to derail SLS in the near term but questions have persisted for years as to the wisdom of continuing with its development. By comparison, SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle — also currently under development and aiming for its first uncrewed test-flight around the earth this year — comes in at about 1/40th of the pricetag….

The programme has faced schedule delays, cost overruns and a “confusing mishmash of contract types and untried approaches to organisations and management”, Don Beyer, a Virginia congressman and the committee’s chairman, said.….

Martin laid part of the blame at the door of Nasa contractors including Boeing, which he accused of “poor planning and poor execution” and on Congress for contracting procedures that he said had failed to incentivise timely delivery of developmental milestones.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS

Rollout scheduled for later today.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...a/10125421002/

NASA prepares for mission to return to the moon, targets late August launch of Artemis I

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – NASA is now targeting the morning of August 29 for the launch of its monstrous Space Launch System rocket and the Artemis I mission to the moon, the agency announced Wednesday, the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing….

The Artemis I mission, slated to send an uncrewed Orion capsule around the moon and back, is set to liftoff from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Teams are confident that their work has positioned them to launch the Artemis I mission in late August. Two other possible launch opportunities were identified as backups, September 2 and September 5.

If NASA is unable to launch the Space Launch System (SLS) during that timeframe, the rocket would have to be rolled back to the agency's Vehicle Assembly Building again for pre-launch work and would likely target another attempt no earlier than mid-October…..

If the SLS is able to launch the Artemis I mission on August 29 teams will target a liftoff during a two-hour window which would open at 8:33 a.m. ET.…

The mission is designed to be long-duration and last as long as 42 days with a targeted splashdown return of the Orion capsule no earlier than October 10. …

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5866432f1.jpeg

Great article.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022...also-the-best/

The SLS rocket is the worst thing to happen to NASA—but maybe also the best?

Artemis lift off due 2pm if the count down on the video is correct.

No, will be later because there is a planned "Hold" at T-10min. They started the countdown late due to WX and also the tanking was interrupted because a hydrogen leakage was detected.

skadi

Launch scrubbed for today.

Scrubbed for today...

(oops, echoing Orac...)

A stress crack has been found in the insulation and there's an issue with engine #3.

What could SpaceX have done with half the money ?

Over 4 billion USD per pop.

That’s a lot of bucks for your bang.

NASA Update:

SLS go for Saturday attempt with some incremental risk acceptable on two items:

Thermal conditioning of the engines, and the TPS (Thermal Protection System) crack at the intertank flange.

Scrubbed again... next attempt Monday/Tuesday...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758482

I'm reminded of something usually attributed to Robert Gilruth, one of the driving forces behind the Apollo programme:

"People will only realise how hard it was to do this the first time when they try to do it the second time."

Sums it up perfectly.
Until humans come up with a much more efficient (& safer!) way of getting to at least orbit; a better vehicle than sticking a relatively tiny payload on top of a heavy fuel laden firework, then space exploration is best left to unmanned probes and commercial operations to satellites. There are far more pressing problems of a terrestrial nature than this expensive nonsense.

Great quote wiggy - I'll have to remember that.
Yes, there has been considerable inflation since Apollo, but compare the $4+ billion per launch cost to the full-up Saturn V/Apollo per launch costs of ~$250 million (and that included the LEM - so the ability to actually land on the moon - something that's not included in that massive Artemis per launch cost).

NASA has lost its way. Once a rare government agency that could actually get things done, it's gradually morphed into just another bloated government bureaucracy, more of a hindrance to advancements in spaceflight than advancing it.
At the beginning of 1961, NASA hadn't even launched a human off of this planet. In mid 1969, NASA landed on the moon - eight plus years later.
In July, 2011, NASA launched the last space shuttle into orbit. Eleven years later, NASA still hasn't regained the ability to launch humans into low earth orbit - never mind land on another celestial body.

From NASA and elsewhere:

No further launch attempts in this window.

Vehicle may need to be rolled back to the VAB for work and possibly to avoid conflict with a launch off the adjacent pad.

There's a window late Sept but those dates are slightly sub-optimal...this comment from space flight commentator Robert Pearlman on the collectspace forum:

**

1. The launch day must account for the Moon's position in its lunar cycle so that the SLS rocket’s upper stage can time the trans-lunar injection burn with enough performance to successfully intercept the "on ramp" for the lunar distant retrograde orbit.
   
2. The resulting trajectory for a given day must ensure Orion is not in darkness for more than 90 minutes at a time so that the solar array wings can receive and convert sunlight to electricity and the spacecraft can maintain an optimal temperature range.
   
3. The launch date must support a trajectory that allows for the skip entry technique planned during Orion’s return to Earth.
   
4. The launch date must support daylight conditions for Orion’s splashdown to initially assist recovery personnel when they locate, secure, and retrieve the spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean.

The current span of acceptable launch dates ends on Sept. 6. The next period opens on Sept. 19 and runs through Oct. 4 (excluding Sept. 29 and Sept. 30).That said, the next set of launch opportunities results in a much shorter mission duration, so NASA may opt to target Oct. 17 to Oct. 31 (excluding Oct. 24, 25, 26, and 28) instead, to preserve the "long" mission profile.

**

NASA needs to be bold in this era of intense and sometimes highly critical scrutiny. Not to mention a distinct lack of consistent political support. Different times.

If it's Boeing, it ain't going.

At this rate SpaceX will get the Starship in orbit first.

Many believed this all along, however I didn't think it would take as long as it has.

Turns out there is another brilliant engineering design decision that's forcing further postponement. The Launch Termination System electrical system is completely independent of the rest of the launch systems electronics (for good reason). As a result, it's battery powered.
So far, so good. Rational system design.
Not so rational - the battery is life limited, with a maximum of 25 days from installation to when it needs to be serviced (just increased from 20 days in the last couple weeks) - and it's not serviceable on the pad :eek:. So once the launch system leaves the Vehicle Assembly Building, they only have 25 days to launch it, or it needs to be returned to the VAB. That is simply horrible engineering - the sort of thing a first year engineering student would know better. $4 Billion plus per launch, and they couldn't be bothered to provision the Launch Termination System to be serviceable on the pad :ugh:.

Just one of many cock ups.

Artemis 1 now for sale on craigslist:
https://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/m...530346653.html

Doesn't mention the battery however.

Comment elsewhere (Robert Pearlman on spacecollect forum) on this that the roll back to the VAB in part is due to the need "to meet the requirement by the Eastern Range for the certification on the flight termination system" (sic):

I haven't looked any further but this be a temporary requirement that was imposed by the USAF rather than something should (or perhaps could) have been foreseen at the design stage.

I have to wonder why NASA didn't start by building a Saturn V - they surely must have kept all the blue-prints? They know it works, and must have gigabytes of data from all the Saturn V launches, that could be used to improve that vehicle where possible with advances in technology and material science since the 1960's.

However, let's be honest; the money spent would have gone a long way to solving other far more pressing and important problems, e.g. renewable energy.

We really don't need to go back to the moon, or any other moon, to see if there is life there: we need to sort out life on this planet first.

Can’t get there from here.

Every single electronic component is 60 years out of date and replacing them would need every part, and the sub-systems, systems etc, re certified and tested.

Most if the manufacturers, lowest-bidder, of the 5 million components won’t be in business any more, or the chains to certify their products if they were.

Nobody to manufacture the engines - and they wouldn’t use the methods, equipment or alloys used then - leading back to the certification issue.

Look at the problems they’ve had with the SLS using engines, boosters and electronics they already have - then multiply them a million fold.

might as well ask Boeing to build new 707. They wouldn’t be able to source the parts, have the equipment or jigs to put it together, meet the H&R rules to do so - and then the FAA wouldn’t clear anyone to fly on it anyway..

Indeed. Sadly the 'correct' procedure would have been to build upon the success of the Apollo program and develop the technology over the following decades. Onwards towards Mars...rather than just stop and take a different route (Space Shuttle). However, the money (i.e. political will) was not there. So far as I can tell, it's barely there now. :\

Looks like next launch attempt 23 or 27th September, if work being done on the pad to fix last weeks problems succeed and the US Space Force/Eastern Range give a waiver on the battery reset.

NASA targets next Artemis I launch attempt, but a lot has to go right | collectSPACE

Looks to be launching in about 20 mins, 0540 GMT. Barring another hold...

Edit: Planned 30 min plus hold at T-10 mins... looks like about an hour hold.

(Just been looking at ADSB, 2 NASA helicopters about, plus a WB-57 and a Gulfstream 5 to the west of KSC)

Launched successfully and all seems to be going well so far. Artemis hopefully heading to the moon and I suppose I'd better go to Tesco. How mundane...

All seemed so very retro.

Totally throw away boosters, totally throw away booster - including the 4 Shuttle main engines at $500M each. Only a few seconds of onboard video before cutting back to a ground camera trying to keep a small dot in the middle if the screen.

All building up to an eventual launch where SpaceX launch a couple of totally reusable boosters and Starships to refuel in orbit before taking their lunar lander to the moon to RV with Artemis to shuttle the crew to the surface, bring them back up, then refuel the lander for the next landing before recovering the Starship back to earth to be used again.

Sort of like a historic re-enactment where you have a copy of Columbus ship being filmed by a modern support ship as it leaves harbour and shuttling the crew about using their tender when they need to get go ashore…

I was hoping to maybe see Artemis orbiting the Earth, or even the rocket igniting for it's burn before it got light in Europe, but sadly ALL the live feeds are either still, or showing the launch of a while ago. Anyone care to guess why the live-feeds aren't working ? Does anyone know what the panned timetable is ?

In addition to that the manned missions require a new, larger launch tower which is likely to cost around $1bn and is 2 years behind schedule.

https://eu.floridatoday.com/story/te...on/7571432001/

Almost correct. The Lunar Starship doesn't recover back to earth. No body flaps fitted. Once it's up its staying up. It may return to Earth orbit for refuelling though.

ORAC, you put into words what I was thinking--a blast from the past. Unlike watching recent SpaceX flights, I felt no excitement watching the launch.

I know if we're going back to the moon "to stay", we need a more robust system than the one-time Apollo style lander. This combination of SLS/Orion and Starship and landers and gateways just seems to be a cobbled-together mess. Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but it seems to be designed primarily to ensure there's a piece of the pie for all the usual suspects.

I've just found this. Full uncut reentry from the Artemis1 mission. I didn't realise it did a skip manoeuvre. Reentry, then back out of the atmosphere before final entry. The sound of the RCS thrusters is a bit unnerving though.