Today, NASA announced that NASA aims to launch its monstrous new rocket, the Space Launch System, on its first flight into deep space as early as late August. NASA says it has tentative dates of August 29, September 2 and September 5 for the rocket’s debut, although there is still a lot of work to be done on the vehicle between now and then.
The Space Launch System, or SLS, is a key component of NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s initiative to return humans to the Moon. Designed to transport NASA’s Orion crew capsule into deep space, the rocket is set to perform a series of missions over the next few years that will eventually end with astronauts landing on the Moon again. But first, NASA wants to see it fly without a crew on board, and send an empty Orion capsule around the moon.
NASA officials have confirmed that they are not sticking to any of those dates for now, but the announcement brings the rocket closer than it ever was to launch. The SLS has been in development for nearly a decade, and its inaugural launch date has been an ever-moving target. NASA originally planned to launch it as early as 2017, but Schedule delays, development accidents, and mismanagement It caused the first rocket to glide over and over again.
But after making a Mostly a full dress rehearsal With the rocket debuting in June, NASA is in its final development stage, and an actual launch looms. A more solid launch date should approach the actual takeoff. “We will commit to the agency in a flight readiness review, just over a week before launch,” NASA’s Jim Frey, associate administrator for exploration systems development, said during a press conference. “But these are the dates the team is working on and they have a plan for that.”
After the rehearsal, which saw the SLS fully loaded with its thrusters for the first time, NASA returned the rocket to the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Since then, engineers have worked to fix some issues that came up during the exercise, such as a hydrogen leak that ultimately prevented the mission team from completing the test as they wanted. There are other missions on the to-do list ahead of launch, but for now, the tentative plan will be to bring the SLS back out of VAB on August 18th before the first launch attempt on August 29th.
Depending on the day the SLS is launched, each date will have a different launch time and mission duration. Here’s what to expect on each date:
- August 29: A two-hour launch window opens at 8:33 a.m. ET. The mission will take 42 days, with Orion falling into the ocean on October 10.
- September 2: A two-hour launch window opens at 12:48 p.m. ET. The mission will last 39 days, with Orion falling into the ocean on October 11.
- September 5: An hour-and-a-half launch window opens at 5:12 p.m. ET. The mission will take 42 days, with Orion falling into the ocean on October 17.
If NASA does not adhere to these dates, the next launch window will open in late September. The windows are determined by the moon’s position relative to the Earth so that the SLS can successfully get the correct path around the moon, and they should allow the Orion capsule to illuminate the sun for most of the flight, so it can get enough rays on its solar panels. NASA has a list of all windows, as well as their own criteria, over here.
If NASA launches the SLS on the launch pad in mid-August but cannot launch by September 5th, the launch of the rocket could experience significant delays. It’s all about the SLS’s flight termination system, which is used to destroy the missile if something goes catastrophically wrong during launch and the craft starts to veer off course. Teams must test the entire flight termination system prior to launch, and this work can only be done within the VAB. Once the SLS is rolled out from the VAB, there is a 20-day time limit for the flight termination system before it can be tested again. This means that the missile must be launched within 20 days of launch, or it must be returned to the VAB so that the flight termination system can be checked again.
This test takes time, so if the SLS is forced back into the VAB after it rolls out in August, it likely won’t be ready to fly until late October. “There is a possibility however, that we will probably strike [late September] Cliff Lanham, senior director of vehicle operations for Earth Exploration Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, said during the press conference. “But this will be a real challenge for us, I will be honest with you. But we will definitely give it our best at that point.”
Still, the schedule could certainly change in the coming weeks. But for now, NASA has some semblance of the SLS launch schedule, and that rocket may actually see space this year.
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