NASA is holding an extensive dress rehearsal with its enormous new rocket, the Space Launch System, over the next three days, rehearsing all of the critical tasks the agency will need to do before the vehicle launches for the first time. It’s a significant milestone in the rocket’s development and one of the final key tests the vehicle must pass before being permitted to launch sometime this summer.
The Space Launch System, or SLS, is the agency’s next flagship rocket, capable of transporting humans and cargo into deep space. It is intended to be a key component of NASA’s Artemis mission, which aims to transport the first woman and first person of color to the Moon by the mid-2020s. SLS, which is capable of lifting about 60,000 pounds of cargo to orbits beyond the Moon, is being developed to launch NASA’s new crew capsule, Orion, which will transport future astronauts to the lunar surface.
When SLS starts, all of this can happen. Its first flight, called Artemis I, is also a test run. The rocket will send Orion into space without any people inside. It will take the vehicle on a four- to six-week trip around the Moon to show off its abilities. However, NASA wants to do a “wet dress rehearsal,” which is when they go through all of the steps that lead up to launch. When NASA flight controllers get ready to launch, they plan to go through the whole process again, including filling the rocket’s tanks with ultracold liquid propellant, just like they will on launch day. This is called “wet.” During a press conference, NASA’s Artemis launch director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, said: “It’s very similar to how we do the countdown to launch.” “There are a few small differences, but they are, in fact, small.” Of course, the main difference is that the countdown won’t reach zero, so there won’t be a launch.
Image Source – Twitter
It’s been a long time coming. NASA and its main contractor, Boeing, have been working on the Space Launch System (SLS) since the early 2010s. There have been a lot of delays and cost overruns along the way. The SLS rocket finally came out of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building on March 17. It was fully stacked, and it took a long time to get to its main launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Called LC-39B, the launchpad used for Apollo and Shuttle launches was called that. It was also used for many Shuttle launches.
5pm ET is when the launch team will arrive and things will start to happen! When the flight controllers start up both SLS and Orion soon after, they will be able to use them. That’s when the team decides if they can start filling the car with gas on Sunday, April 3rd. The excitement doesn’t really start until then. The SLS’s tanks will be filled with cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen if they say “yes.” Over the course of the day, as the propellant boils away, they’ll have to add more to the tanks.
The flight controllers will count down to a predetermined “launch” time after the rocket has been filled up. They will eventually reach “terminal count.” When the support teams switch Orion to internal power just six minutes before zero, the rocket will do the same thing. The countdown will keep going until it’s T-minus 33 seconds, at which point the teams will stop the launch. Recycle: Then they’ll try again to go through the last part of the countdown again. This will show how well the team can try again if the launch is delayed. Terminal count will be done again, and they’ll get to T-minus 10 seconds before they cut things off for the second time.
For those wishing to follow along with the test, NASA plans to provide detailed updates on its Artemis blog, as well as provide dispatches on Twitter. Live views of the SLS rocket will stream on one of NASA’s YouTube channels.
