NASA to conduct second SLS launch dress rehearsal in June
In announcing a press conference later today about the status of NASA’s SLS rocket, the agency revealed it now plans to conduct a second SLS launch dress rehearsal in June.
NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrived back at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building April 26 after a 10-hour journey from launch pad 39B. Since their arrival, teams have worked to replace a faulty upper stage check valve and repair a small leak within the tail service mast umbilical ground plate housing. The teams also have been performing additional checkouts while the spaceport’s supplier of gaseous nitrogen makes upgrades to their pipeline configuration to support Artemis I activities.
We will likely find out NASA’s new launch schedule for the rocket today.
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.
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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
In announcing a press conference later today about the status of NASA’s SLS rocket, the agency revealed it now plans to conduct a second SLS launch dress rehearsal in June.
NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrived back at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building April 26 after a 10-hour journey from launch pad 39B. Since their arrival, teams have worked to replace a faulty upper stage check valve and repair a small leak within the tail service mast umbilical ground plate housing. The teams also have been performing additional checkouts while the spaceport’s supplier of gaseous nitrogen makes upgrades to their pipeline configuration to support Artemis I activities.
We will likely find out NASA’s new launch schedule for the rocket today.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
If we find out the SLS launch date, we may finally find out when the Permit for SpaceX to launch Starship Super Heavy will be allowed. :)
You know, with the number of parts in something like SLS/Orion, it seems like every time you run a dress rehearsal that it is a chance for something else to fail, so you end up doing “whack-a-mole” endlessly. Perhaps wearing out other parts so they are ready to fail. And then, even if you have got matters so that everything is “fixed”, there’s no guarantee that some other part, having successfully performed N number times won’t decide to fail on N+1. Am I off the beam, here? If I am correct, “what is to be done”?
Col B – It seems like Musk consciously or unconsciously has conceived of a product and test program that attempts to address your observation about complex systems testing resembling Whack a Mole.
On the wall of many senior engineering managers there is sign which all say substantially: “There comes a time in every project life that you have to kill (fire / layoff / send away) all the engineers. At some point you have to just go test. But if has taken your project 2 decades to get there and the test article is ungodly expensive than understandably there is a reluctance to fly unless you can be **SURE**. Anyone with half a brain KNOWS that in complex systems like this there cannot be certainty with all capital letters.
That being said, I think Musk’s genius is to have tried to come up with a vehicle which is such that a single failed test is not a catastrophe. His relentless desire to build products gives him the flexibility to build – test fly – analyze and fly again.
Also, the Musk quote that the best part is NO part. is another recognition that at some point the game of whack a mole begins and having one less mole is a good thing.
SLS is a simpler beast….I would suspect sabotage. I wish Nick Saban would get into rocketry. He could have told that pixie punk that blew his elbow out at the Gala that arm-tackles don’t work. I have to get Musk and Saban in the same room…and to get SLS foam Crimson.