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.
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 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
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,