NASA’s lunar mega-missile is facing yet another test delay ahead of the vehicle’s expected maiden flight for the Artemis program
For months, NASA personnel conduct a series of tests called a “green run” on the first core stage of the agency’s massive new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). The tests take place on the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi before being shipped to Florida for the unmanned launch of Artemis 1 from NASA Kennedy Space Center, near Orlando.
In a short update Monday (Feb. 22), NASA said it is reviewing “the performance of a valve on the core stage” of the SLS, forcing the agency to delay the second “hot fire” test. A new date for the hot fire has not yet been announced.
Video: How NASA’s SLS megarocket engine test works
The agency confirmed that the valve in question worked fine during the first hot burn test, performed on January 16. That procedure ended after just 67 seconds, instead of the planned eight minutes, prompting the agency to schedule the upcoming second test to gather all the data required to confirm the missile’s planned operations.
That test was to take place on February 25. But while preparing for checkout last weekend, engineers discovered that one of the eight valves on SLS “was not working properly,” NASA said, causing the delay. The ‘green run’ process has been delayed since late 2020, when the seventh test in the series, a “wet clothes” rehearsal, also required two takes.
NASA was facing a tight deadline to ship the SLS rocket to Kennedy for a planned flight around the moon by the end of the year, a milestone in the moon landing schedule for Artemis 3 in 2024.
In recent weeks, some hints have been given that the 2024 deadline may no longer be a set goal. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden’s administration met committed to continuing the work of landing people on the moon , but there was no language in the discussion about the 2024 target set by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Furthermore, acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk – just appointed last month when the administration passed – recently told Ars Technica that he felt that the deadline was no longer ‘realistic’, “as NASA has not received its full request for Artemis credits in previous budgets – including the human landing system (HLS). NASA too the selection process for HLS was interrupted earlier this month.
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