NASA testing SLS fuel leak repairs; UPDATE: Problems!
UPDATE: NASA posted a late update today describing vaguely the results of this fueling test, and revealed that while the test of the replacement seals appeared to go well, there were other problems:
During the test, teams encountered an issue with ground support equipment that reduced the flow of liquid hydrogen into the rocket. … Engineers will purge the line over the weekend to ensure proper environmental conditions and inspect the ground support equipment before replacing a filter suspected to be the cause of the reduced flow.
In other words, the SLS fueling system is like playing whack-a-mole. You fix one problem, and others show up.
I predicted this. It remains entirely possible NASA will not be able to complete a perfect full wet-dress rehearsal countdown in time to launch before April 6th, when this present launch window closes.
Original post:
———————-
NASA yesterday did an unannounced test fueling of its SLS rocket to check out the repairs in the fueling system.
NASA is loading liquid hydrogen aboard its Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday for an unpublicized but crucial test of the repairs made to a leaky umbilical that derailed a countdown rehearsal on Feb. 2.
The operation to load liquid hydrogen into the huge fuel tank on the rocket’s core stage was thought to be already underway at launch complex 39B on Thursday morning. The test will determine if new seals installed in the launch pad umbilical are working. “As part of our work to assess the repair we made in the area where we saw elevated hydrogen gas concentrations during the previous wet dress rehearsal, engineers are testing the new seals by running some liquid hydrogen across the interface and partially filling the core stage liquid hydrogen tank. The data will inform the timeline for our next wet dress rehearsal,” a NASA spokesperson said about the previously unannounced test.
If the new seals work on these fueling tests, another full dress rehearsal countdown could take place as early as next week.
Posting is going to very light for the rest of the day. I am fighting a bad head cold and just want to go back to bed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
UPDATE: NASA posted a late update today describing vaguely the results of this fueling test, and revealed that while the test of the replacement seals appeared to go well, there were other problems:
During the test, teams encountered an issue with ground support equipment that reduced the flow of liquid hydrogen into the rocket. … Engineers will purge the line over the weekend to ensure proper environmental conditions and inspect the ground support equipment before replacing a filter suspected to be the cause of the reduced flow.
In other words, the SLS fueling system is like playing whack-a-mole. You fix one problem, and others show up.
I predicted this. It remains entirely possible NASA will not be able to complete a perfect full wet-dress rehearsal countdown in time to launch before April 6th, when this present launch window closes.
Original post:
———————-
NASA yesterday did an unannounced test fueling of its SLS rocket to check out the repairs in the fueling system.
NASA is loading liquid hydrogen aboard its Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday for an unpublicized but crucial test of the repairs made to a leaky umbilical that derailed a countdown rehearsal on Feb. 2.
The operation to load liquid hydrogen into the huge fuel tank on the rocket’s core stage was thought to be already underway at launch complex 39B on Thursday morning. The test will determine if new seals installed in the launch pad umbilical are working. “As part of our work to assess the repair we made in the area where we saw elevated hydrogen gas concentrations during the previous wet dress rehearsal, engineers are testing the new seals by running some liquid hydrogen across the interface and partially filling the core stage liquid hydrogen tank. The data will inform the timeline for our next wet dress rehearsal,” a NASA spokesperson said about the previously unannounced test.
If the new seals work on these fueling tests, another full dress rehearsal countdown could take place as early as next week.
Posting is going to very light for the rest of the day. I am fighting a bad head cold and just want to go back to bed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
My sympathies, Robert. I am still slowly getting over exactly such an affliction myself. The “common cold” seems both more common than usual and nastier this year. Take care of yourself.
Eric Berger says nasa buried the lede.
https://x.com/sciguyspace/status/2022477249497403606?s=46
“Yikes. NASA couldn’t even complete a test of the SLS rocket’s ground system seal for liquid hydrogen because something else broke with the ground systems. And they wait until 8 pm ET Friday to send an update on something they knew last night.“
Gary: I added this NASA update to my story earlier today on these tests.
If SLS cannot demonstrate the ability to reliably launch within a fairly constrained timeframe, how will it be able to synchronize with HLS, which has its own timing constraints imposed by the need for multiple on-orbit refillings, supported by multiple launches?
SLS is an Apollo-era solution trying to mate up with a Starship-era solution: their constraints just don’t work together!
You know, when your launch cadence is not even once every three years, perhaps things like this are not so surprising?
Casey Handmer’s reaction was even more scathing than Berger’s:
https://x.com/i/status/2022523940359279037
Actually, he gets even more caustic than that, but I don’t want to clog up Bob’s combox with even more text — you can read it all at the link. Of course, our host requires no convincing — he has been making many of these points for years.
It’s so depressing.
Hello Ray,
“If SLS cannot demonstrate the ability to reliably launch within a fairly constrained timeframe, how will it be able to synchronize with HLS, which has its own timing constraints imposed by the need for multiple on-orbit refillings, supported by multiple launches?”
I think that was a key reason why NASA stipulated a 100 day loiter time in lunar orbit requirement for HLS bids — so that they had the cushion to blow through a few months of lunar launch windows if they needed it.
Richard M wrote, “Our host requires no convincing — he has been making many of these points for years.”
To deaf ears I might add. Even now, no one quotes me in these matters. I consistently predict what is going to happen with a very high percentage of rightness, but no one appears to hear.
Bob, you have your fans here, and we all know that you have made many of these points, over and over again. I very much regret that you do not have more fans!
I would like to just . . . really underline the stupendous fact that NASA spends $650 million EVERY YEAR on SLS ground systems. And this is what we get for our money.
Even with this stupendously low flight rate, this is still an unacceptable result.
Speaking of your past critiques of SLS, Bob, your discussion of these massive annual support costs was one of my favorite parts of “Capitalism in Space.” Remember Loren Thompson’s criticism of that at the time? It was unconvincing at the time; nine years later, it is downright embarrassing. Unfortunately for Loren, the Internet is forever.
Bob: You have far greater impact than you might imagine! One – but only one, of the reasons for my recent response to your solicitation was because of your “track record” and the fact that you attract a number of “superb” followers to add to the “track” of your “record!”
Yes, it is shameful that you do not receive the proper credit you deserve, but you will be the last one to hear it. Such is the nature of the current socio-economic firmament.
Ray Van Dune,
The multiple launches to provide refill propellant for HLS Starship will be to a propellant depot Starship in LEO which will have the ability to maintain a full load of prop with negligible loss for an extended period. Thus, the depot can be filled well in advance of an HLS Starship launch. That, in turn, allows the HLS Starship to wait on its own launch until the Artemis 3 SLS-Orion stack is within a couple of weeks of being fit to launch and still get to NRHO ahead of Orion. I expect that this is how things will work out for the actual Artemis 3 campaign.
Dick Eagleson
Thanks for you response, and it mirrors my understanding well, except that I do not have a quantitative idea of just how long these periods of on-orbit waiting for Depot / SLS can practically be, and how they compare with the next available launch windows, should SLS have to wait for the next one (or two). My understanding is that launch days occur in groups of 4 or 5, a window occurring very roughly every four weeks.
So an HLS would have to be on orbit, filled from the Depot, and ready to go TLI when an SLS successfully launched.
So if the SLS fails to launch during a given window, the HLS has to wait roughly 3 weeks for it to try again.
SLS Launch window – 1 week
Inter-window – 3 weeks
SLA Launch window – 1 week
So if SLS could not launch until the end of the second window, HLS would have been “cocked and locked” for more than 5 weeks at start of the mission! Obviously topping-up is going to have to occur, how many times is the question.
Yes, I am assuming that it would be impractical or too risky for the HLS to “fill on demand” when the SLS actually launches.
In defense of the SLS team, they aren’t even close to the worst example of government corruption and ineptitude. Three years really jumps up at you, there was no way to know they’d need to fuel the rocket with hydrogen. With all that money, it was supposed to have been easier.
Government is the last entity in the universe that should have a blank check, yet here we are. I want to go back to bed too, and I’m not even sick. Hope Mr. Z feels better.
Reminds me of the fact that the U.S. Navy has failed to bring into service a single successful major surface combatant ship class in this century.
So, this just happened: Jared Isaacman just wrote a long reply to Eric Berger’s caustic post (the one Gary posted above). It is worth noting. “Where we begin is not where we will end.”
https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2022701450057470189
P.S. Hope you’re feeling better today, Bob.
John: In further defense of the SLS team and the ground crew, SLS is a hardware poor project. They can’t do fueling tests until they get the rocket on the launchpad. So, they wait three years between launches, twiddling their thumbs.
This situation is entirely the fault of NASA’s management. SLS is a badly designed rocket that can’t launch reliably because the kinks can’t be worked out between launches.
And thank you for your concern. Sadly I feel worse today than yesterday. I’m going to bed.
Ray Van Dune wrote: “If SLS cannot demonstrate the ability to reliably launch within a fairly constrained timeframe, how will it be able to synchronize with HLS, which has its own timing constraints imposed by the need for multiple on-orbit refillings, supported by multiple launches? SLS is an Apollo-era solution trying to mate up with a Starship-era solution: their constraints just don’t work together”
A good point, but I agree with Dick Eagleson, that SpaceX could conceivably keep their HLS Starship at their propellant depot until SLS successfully launches, then send Starship to lunar orbit/Gateway. It is a workaround, which a well designed and efficiently operated system would not need.
_____________
From Richard M’s linked quote from Casey Handmer:
Although that is an apples to oranges comparison, the point is well taken about the seriousness. Congress and NASA were not serious about getting to the Moon until about a year ago, and they seem to have forgotten how to do things right. SpaceX has spent years testing and improving its hardware, from ground support equipment to flight test units to manufacturing facilities. They have used test tanks many times in order to do improvements without the need to wait for a flight unit. Undoubtedly they have a similar philosophy for their software, too, but that is much harder for us to observe. NASA, on the other hand, seems to have assumed that they had their hydrogen loading problem solved and did not continue testing and improving their system over the past three years. The difference in philosophies is striking, and as Robert pointed out, it is entirely the fault of NASA’s management.
______________
Robert,
I’m sorry that so many of my posts have been going into mediation, today, which adds to your workload at a poor time for you. I hope you feel better soon.
Ray Van Dune,
My posited scenario for Artemis 3 assumed HLS Starship could do most of its waiting on the ground, launching only when all of what I think will be the inevitable fiddle-farting with the SLS-Orion stack is closing in on a conclusion and can be seen to allow a crew launch by a reasonably certain date. At that point, the HLS Starship would launch to LEO, refill from the waiting depot ship and then proceed on out to NRHO to await the arrival of Orion.
I hadn’t considered the possibility of HLS Starship launching to LEO well in advance and then loitering there for awhile, but that is certainly an additional possibility. In such a case, I would imagine the refilling would best be done at the end of this loiter period to eliminate any possibility of needing to do any last-minute top-off before Trans-Lunar Injection.
What the boil-off rate for the depot ships will be is an interesting question. If lunar missions are soon frequent – which they will only be once SLS-Orion are in the rearview mirror for good and crew missions are run using Starships that can both carry crew from Earth’s surface to lunar orbit and later return from lunar orbit to Earth’s surface – then the interval between receipt of a final tanker-load of prop and the transfer of a full load to a lunar transfer Starship or an HLS lander will likely be fairly short.
As prep for departure of Mars-bound armadas at 26-month intervals, however, depot ships allocated for this purpose will need to maintain near-zero prop loss for periods of at least two years. I would anticipate a continuous stream of tankers shuttling from ground to LEO to fill up as many depot ships as will be needed to refill the armada vessels over a period of a few weeks prior to departure time.
As lunar missions ramp up, there will also be a need for depot ships in lunar orbit to refill HLS Starships for multiple runs to and from the lunar surface once the landers have arrived in lunar orbit for the first time. The details of this dance will be interesting. Will lunar-orbit depot ships be the same as LEO depot ships? Will there be two types of LEO depot ships, one for lunar missions and the other for Mars missions?
It’s going to be interesting to see what develops.
Edward: I haven’t noticed any big increase in moderation from you. If you include two links in the post, it will have to be approved by me, but that’s just a simple click.
All: I think everyone is missing something. When Elon Musk said he was shifting focus to the Moon, he made it clear he wasn’t simply doing it to aid NASA’s Artemis program. He intends to fly his own missions there, independent of Orion or SLS.
Thus, it doesn’t matter what happens with SLS, SpaceX is planning to bypass it, and do that very openly.
The protests from the control freaks in Congress should be spectacular to behold.
Dick Eagleson
“In such a case, I would imagine the refilling would best be done at the end of this loiter period to eliminate any possibility of needing to do any last-minute top-off before Trans-Lunar Injection.”
Dick, you highlight what I think is the real problem … how will we know when we’re at “the end of this loiter period”?!
No matter when the SLS launch is scheduled, it can still be cancelled, and slip by anything from a day to three weeks. Thus, by definition, if we launch SLS first, it is either accept an arbitrarily long on-orbit wait, or figure out a way to launch HLS “on demand”!
I don’t think the latter can work. It is at best a source of delay with people in orbit, and at worst a safety compromise if we go TLI on SLS without HLS at least on the way.
”Reminds me of the fact that the U.S. Navy has failed to bring into service a single successful major surface combatant ship class in this century.”
Hello? The Ford-class aircraft carrier, the most powerful surface combatant in all of naval history, says “Hi!”
Not to mention the USS San Antonio was laid down only three weeks shy of “this century” and commissioned in 2006. Then there’s the America class, with the USS America laid down in 2009 and commissioned in 2014.
Now you did say “surface combatant”, but there’s also the Virginia-class submarine, with the USS Virginia brought into service in 2004.
So this century we have the Virginia-class submarine in 2004, the San Antonio-class LPD in 2006, the America-class amphibious assault ship in 2014, and the Ford-class aircraft carrier in 2017.
The weird thing is, we can do the big ships. It’s the small ones that give us trouble.
And if this happened to Stoke you would have played it down. Arty III will incorporate changes.
And where is Lunar Starship?
Robert,
You wrote: “I think everyone is missing something. When Elon Musk said he was shifting focus to the Moon, he made it clear he wasn’t simply doing it to aid NASA’s Artemis program. He intends to fly his own missions there, independent of Orion or SLS. Thus, it doesn’t matter what happens with SLS, SpaceX is planning to bypass it, and do that very openly.”
I think that people here are merely discussing a possible workaround for the fiasco that is SLS. I think that we all understand that SpaceX’s new plan is to work faster than SLS-Orion can (a very low bar — a very very low bar).
Blue Origin is refocusing the company on getting their Human Landing System (HLS) completed, perhaps even before SpaceX gets theirs ready for Artemis III.
SpaceX may be focusing on completing their HLS in time for the same NASA mission, or they may be working toward having it ready even sooner so that SpaceX itself can use it to put a base (Moonbase Alpha?) on the Moon as soon as possible in order to use material from the Moon for their new spaceborne artificial intelligence project. For their various Earth orbiting projects, which they have announced a need for a million satellites, making them on the Moon could save a fortune by avoiding launching from the Earth’s surface.
I would not be surprised if SpaceX chose, this time, to beat NASA to their own destination. If SpaceX is ready to go to the Moon before Artemis III, then I suspect the company will do so. Four years ago, they may have chosen to not embarrass NASA and delayed their first Starship integrated flight test until after NASA did their own first SLS launch, but if they chose so, then that was obviously a mistake. How much sooner could they have learned by launching months sooner even if such early launches used kerosene Merlin engines rather than methane Raptor engines?
With NASA rapidly becoming a minor customer, SpaceX may be less worried about upstaging them to the Moon than they did four years ago when NASA was a more important customer of theirs. Exploring manufacturing on the Moon is becoming highly important to SpaceX.
I would not be surprised if Blue Origin were realizing the same thing. Blue Origin’s goal is to move as much polluting industry into space as possible, and they may be realizing that they can do it sooner rather than later.
__________________
Jeff Wright asked: “And if this happened to Stoke you would have played it down. Arty III will incorporate changes. And where is Lunar Starship?
And Stoke’s rocket is still in development, whereas SLS is supposed to be operational. Instead, SLS is still behaving as though it is still a development project but being operated as though it is operational enough to be safe for human spaceflight. We are seeing that SLS is not as ready for prime time as some people think.
The Starship HLS is still in development, where it, Stoke Space’s Nova, SLS, and Orion still belong. The former two are where they belong, the latter two are dangerous.
__________________
Robert, several times when I hit “Post Comment,” the comment does not show up for several minutes or a few hours. This happened a couple of times this morning. I have assumed that this meant they went into the moderation queue, requiring you to click the button, rather than going to some form of comment purgatory until the software puts it into the database.
Edward: The delay posting your comments does not appear to be on my end. I will ask an obvious question: Did you refresh the post where you commented? That might bring it up faster.
“I consistently predict what is going to happen with a very high percentage of rightness, but no one appears to hear.”
“A prophet is without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household”
Mark 6:4, Matthew 13:57, Luke 4:24, John 4:44 (?!)
Or, they are listening to ‘Baker Street’.
Dick Eagleson noted: “The “common cold” seems both more common than usual and nastier this year.”
“Shut it down! Shut it all down!” Westworld 1973; World 2019
Robert,
Yes, I do refresh, but there are some other odd behaviors that I have with delays in updates to the comments list (on the right side of the window), and some other oddities. Due to your new information, I suspect that my browser has some flaws that I don’t yet understand. I will continue to not worry about these delays, but now I will not worry that it means you have to work harder than necessary, because my problem is not your problem; it is mine. I’m sure that it isn’t that you don’t care (now that you know that I am not problem-free), because your recommendation shows that you do care, but this problem means that I have something that is my very own.
1. NASA’s plan is to launch and fill HLS in orbit, prior to launching SLS. Makes sense.
2. Once Orion is checked out, it will go TLI, followed shortly by HLS. Not sure why HLS- first would not be more secure.
Edward – a percentage of online weirdness is browser related. How big that percentage is subject to no small amount of arm waving and chair throwing. Try a couple (few?) different ones and see what happens. The old IT “clear your cache” is usually a reliable opening bid. My go-to is Firefox, which has gotten bloated and less reliable over the years. A lot of recommendations are to use Chrome, which I reject as I despise Google harvesting everything my browser does. Edge isn’t bad, though it does have some streaming problems on X/Spaces. I configure my browsers to clear cache upon exit, which means I don’t have to remember how to do it manually. Other options in no particular order are Tor and Brave. Good luck, as it is frustrating. Cheers –
They are going to work on the ground support equipment “over the weekend”? Spacex would do it overnight. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between Spacex and old space.
Mkent,
The Ford, San Antonio, America, and Virginia classes are not *surface combatants.* And yet, even so, all of those classes experienced major delays, major problems being brought online! The Ford is a particular embarrassment, far over budget, far behind schedule, some of its key systems still not reliable. The Virginia block III/IV/V can probably be considered a success, but we simply can’t build them quickly enough.
The failures I have in mind are the actual frontline surface combatants: the Zumwalt DDX, CGX, LCS, and now, most recently, the Constellation class. NAVSEA bulloxed them all up. And then there’s the Columbia class….. It doesn’t help that our ship building industry is a disaster area, too. But that has been a problem decades in the making, going back to the 1960s.
With rare exceptions, Navy procurement has just been a disaster since the end of the Cold War.
Robert Zimmerman,
We all know that Elon’s new plans require kicking SLS-Orion to the curb in favor of a new Starship version that can launch crews to LEO, refill and take them to lunar orbit for rendezvous with an HLS Starship, then return crew to Earth later. I’ve been predicting such a thing since well before Elon’s recent official declaration of a SpaceX Moon program. I think the only reason Elon hasn’t publicly announced such a development to be in the works yet is that he sees no advantage in appearing to kick SLS-Orion while it is down given the current SLS-Orion troubles. Anyone with sense knows a new SLS-Orion-replacing Starship is coming. Elon chose to emphasize the plan for a lunar mass driver as that doesn’t compete with anything in NASA’s portfolio. Lunar Crew Starship can be announced in an “oh, by the way” fashion later, once the Artemis 2 mission is over.
Ray Van Dune,
By the time Artemis 3 is able to be undertaken, Starship will pretty much be able to be launched on-demand. The upcoming test launch of B19 and S39 will be the dozenth Starship full-stack launch in less than two years. There will be many more than 12 launches over the next two years. And by 2028, when Artemis 3 is currently scheduled to fly, SpaceX will have at least five pads from which it can launch Starships. There will be no necessity to launch HLS way in advance of SLS-Orion for Artemis 3.
Jeff Wright,
Stoke’s booster stage runs on methalox, not hydrolox, so it can’t ever have any LH2 loading problems on its booster stage by definition. Stoke’s upper stage does use LH2, but has already been filled and tested many times in both its original and its updated configuration and no problems have been reported. The proof of that particular pudding will be in what happens at Stoke’s actual Canaveral pad and not just its test facilities, but we may not have more than a few more months to wait to see that. Try not to be too disappointed if Stoke provides no long-running launch glitch soap opera comparable to those associated with SLS-Orion.
Where is lunar Starship? Right now the test article’s upper-works are being built somewhere in the vast interior of the Starbase StarFactory away from those giant view windows along the road. The landing gear are being drop-tested inside that giant cabana at McGregor. The lower 2/3 of the HLS Starship test article will be built based on V3 or V4 technology once those have completed testing and development. The test launch should occur sometime in the back half of 2027 or early 2028.
Dick Eagleson: To some extent, the conversation here has been very informative, in that it made very clear the absurdity of NASA’s entire Artemis mission framework, relying on SLS and Orion. This is a pig that won’t fly, no matter how NASA tries to reframe it.
agimarc,
Thank you for the recommendations. I, too, will skip Chrome for the same reasons. It learned enough about me when I had to use it at work.
We seem to be living in interesting times, in the “Chinese Curse” sense. Not only with our computers, but with AI, too. Our space program is getting better, though.
It already did fly Robert. And it flew higher than ANY Starship.
Jeff Wright: you’re confusing Robert’s statement, which is about Artemis’s success, with the far narrower claim about the first SLS flight. ‘And it flew higher than ANY Starship’ is a trolling statement that doesn’t add signal to the conversation, just sets up an us-vs-them argument.
That SLS flew higher than Starship is truth not trolling—learn the difference. And your hero Jared is fastened up in Katie’s lockbox.
ww.al.com/news/2026/02/700-plus-space-command-personnel-in-alabama-by-end-of-2028-sen-katie-britt-says.html
Call it reconstruction.
I just saw where NASA is raising the LCC to 16% H2 base on some report that Honetcutt talked about but I cannot find any report on this testing being done. This sounds like the sloppy NASA just clanging things to suit them.
Changing a long time concentration limit requires a lot of testing. Did the do multiple tests to find out where it would ignite. Is it 80% one day and 60% another.
NASA has seriously lost it.
Jeff Wright: the argument is about Artemis’s success, which relies on multiple different vehicles. The program will not be anything more than mediocre with the low flight rate available for crew transport to the Moon. The learn rate will be too low for meaningful progress. What trajectories the SLS and Starship have flown is independent of that reality, which makes it a troll comment. It really does not matter here whether it’s true or false.
As for Space Command moving personnel to Alabama, am I supposed to object to that? I do r have a problem with it.
That should read don’t have. Alas.
Robert Zimmerman,
Quite right about the long-term irrelevance of SLS-Orion to the real settlement/industrialization/exploration of the Moon. I expect Elon to deliver a Starship replacement for SLS-Orion at about the same time as HLS Starship is delivered and for it to start flying SpaceX-only lunar missions shortly after Artemis 3. At that point, let us all hope SLS-Orion can be taken out back of the barn and given the Old Yeller treatment regardless of the Artemis 4 & 5 language in the Big Beautiful Bill and we are spared live crew launched on the maiden flight of EUS and all of the other currently-planed future stupidities. NASA can conduct Artemis 4, 5 and beyond by buying tickets on Elon’s Starships.
Jeff Wright,
The fact that the SLS core stage of Artemis 1 achieved a higher altitude at apogee than any Super Heavy or Starship launched thus far is pretty much the definition of a pyrrhic “victory.” Unlike any past or future SLS core stage, Super Heavies have been recovered and reused already, presaging what will soon be SOP for the stack.
The comment about Jared Isaacman and Sen. Katie Britt is incoherent. Space Command is part of the War Department, not NASA. I have no idea what you imagine the connection is, but the rest of us don’t see one.
Dick Eagleston: Y’know, if I argued incoherently like Jeff Wright, I could have pointed out that the Falcon Heavy Tesla flew far higher than SLS has or in fact ever will. So there!
But then, I don’t normally argue incoherently. Makes my brain hurt.