{"id":44487,"date":"2021-01-17T05:24:20","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T05:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44487"},"modified":"2021-01-17T05:24:20","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T05:24:20","slug":"nasa-cuts-short-ground-test-of-its-giant-moon-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44487","title":{"rendered":"NASA cuts short ground test of its giant moon rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The test is a vital step in NASA\u2019s Artemis programme to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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NASA ignited all four engines of a deep space exploration rocket \u2013 the Space Launch System (SLS) \u2013 for the first time on Saturday, but the \u201chot fire\u201d test ended much earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

Mounted in a test facility at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, the SLS\u2019s 212-foot (65-metre) tall core stage roared to life at 4:27pm local time (22:27 GMT) for more than a minute before the exercise was aborted.<\/p>\n

The test was supposed to last for eight minutes to simulate the rocket\u2019s climb to orbit.<\/p>\n

During the live broadcast of the test, NASA did not explain the reason for the early shutdown, but Wayne Hale, a former manager of NASA\u2019s space shuttle programme, suggested a \u201cmajor component failure\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Well MCF was not a call this ascent flight director ever wanted to hear: Major Component Failure is detected by the SSME controller.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Wayne Hale (@waynehale) January 16, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Completely concur. Very valuable. Now the discussions will begin as to whether there was enough data collected or if the test needs to be rerun \u2013 either way that engine will likely be changed out. Of course the experts will probably tell us at the post test conference shortly https:\/\/t.co\/523kXgoVl5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Wayne Hale (@waynehale) January 16, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The fiery show, the last leg of NASA\u2019s nearly year-long \u201cGreen Run\u201d test campaign, was a vital step for the space agency and its top SLS contractor, Boeing, before the rocket\u2019s first launch in\u00a0November this year.<\/p>\n

The success of that unmanned mission, called \u201cArtemis 1\u201d, will set the stage for the first landing on the Moon by humans since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. US President Donald Trump has pushed for that trip \u2013 which will also see the first woman on the Moon \u2013 to happen by 2024.<\/p>\n

It was unclear whether Boeing and NASA would have to repeat Saturday\u2019s test, a prospect that could push the debut launch into 2022.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters, John Honeycut, SLS Program Manager said it was hard to detect what exactly went wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I saw in the control room that I was in it\u2019s pretty much the same thing you guys saw\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency \u201cgot lots of data that we\u2019re going to be able to sort through\u201d to determine if a do-over is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know not everybody is feeling as happy as we otherwise could because we wanted to get eight minutes of a hot fire and we got over a minute, but I just want to remind people where we\u2019ve been and where we\u2019re going and what an important milestone this is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The expendable super heavy-lift SLS is three years behind schedule and nearly $3bn over budget.<\/p>\n

Critics have long argued for NASA to retire the rocket\u2019s shuttle-era core technologies, which have launch costs of $1bn or more per mission, in favour of newer commercial alternatives that promise lower costs.<\/p>\n

By comparison, it costs as little as $90m to fly the massive, but less powerful, Falcon Heavy rocket designed and manufactured by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, and some $350m per launch for United Launch Alliance\u2019s legacy Delta IV Heavy.<\/p>\n

While newer, more reusable rockets from both companies \u2013 SpaceX\u2019s Starship and United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan \u2013 promise heavier lift capacity than the Falcon Heavy or Delta IV Heavy, potentially at a lower cost, SLS backers have argued it would take two or more launches on those rockets to launch what the SLS could carry in a single mission.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported in October that President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s space advisers aimed to delay Trump\u2019s 2024 goal, casting fresh doubts on the long-term fate of SLS just as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin scramble to bring rival new heavy-lift capacity to market.<\/p>\n

NASA and Boeing engineers have stayed on a 10-month schedule for the Green Run \u201cdespite having significant adversity this year,\u201d Boeing\u2019s SLS manager John Shannon told reporters this week, citing five tropical storms and a hurricane that hit Stennis, as well as a three-month closure after some engineers tested positive for the coronavirus in March.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The test is a vital step in NASA\u2019s Artemis programme to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024.NASA ignited all four engines of a deep space exploration rocket \u2013 the Space Launch System (SLS) \u2013 for the first time on Saturday, but the \u201chot fire\u201d test ended much earlier…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}