SLS dress rehearsal countdown begins
NASA engineers began their fourth attempt to complete a full dress rehearsal countdown of the SLS rocket yesterday, with everything proceeding so far as planned.
Overnight, engineers powered up the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System’s core stage. Teams also configured several systems on the ground, rocket, and spacecraft and performed activities to prepare umbilicals that connect the rocket and spacecraft to the mobile launcher and are used to provide power, communications, coolant, and propellant.
Actual fueling begins tomorrow, when the countdown is supposed to conclude at T-0 at 2:40 pm (Eastern).
NASA live stream is available here.
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NASA engineers began their fourth attempt to complete a full dress rehearsal countdown of the SLS rocket yesterday, with everything proceeding so far as planned.
Overnight, engineers powered up the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System’s core stage. Teams also configured several systems on the ground, rocket, and spacecraft and performed activities to prepare umbilicals that connect the rocket and spacecraft to the mobile launcher and are used to provide power, communications, coolant, and propellant.
Actual fueling begins tomorrow, when the countdown is supposed to conclude at T-0 at 2:40 pm (Eastern).
NASA live stream is available here.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Is this the same Orion capsule with the failed power unit (battery or fuel cell or power supply?) that they said it was too hard to replace a year ago? I am sure there is a backup, but did they replace it?
Jay: As far as I know, the capsule is the same. And really, aren’t you expecting too much from NASA? They discovered the failed unit in November 2020, and then said it would delay the unmanned test launch by a year to fix it.
Of course, then that unmanned test launch was scheduled for November ’21. It is now going to fly about ten months later, which means they had time to replace the capsule.
Then again, the things that caused these more recent delays would not have been discovered had they first replaced the capsule. It is too difficult for NASA to do two things at once, such as do a dress rehearsal countdown of the rocket while the capsule is fixed. Everything has to proceed slowly, carefully, and in order, one item at a time. Thus, if they had replaced the capsule they would have not done any dress rehearsal countdowns until that was done.
Oy.
That’s waterfall.
Dave Smith and Michael Malice
“The Red Pill” (Dec, 2020)
https://youtu.be/8TBM0-OMsJE
2:46
With under 3 hours to go, the WDR is proceeding. FYI the link at the end of the article seems to have expired. I found a link at NextSpaceFlight.
With 2 hours to go, Artemis control says they are working a hydrogen leak issue, but still proceeding. Hydrogen of course is very leak-prone given it is the lightest element, and the only thing more leak-prone than an H2 plumbing system is a HUGE H2 plumbing system, which is what SLS is.
The Hindenburg had a small hydrogen leak, too,