NASA rolls out Artemis 1 Moon mission to launch pad

[Ray Allan]

NASA began rolling its Artemis 1 moon mission out to the launch pad for testing at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on March 17, 2022.

The agency's huge crawler-transporter 2 vehicle began hauling the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule from KSC's Vehicle Assembly Building to Pad 39B at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 GMT). The 4-mile (6.4 kilometers) journey is expected to take about 11 hours.

It was a huge moment for NASA and its Artemis program, which aims to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on the moon by the end of the 2020s. Artemis 1 will jump-start that vision, sending an uncrewed Orion on a roughly monthlong journey around the moon. Launch is expected in May or June.

https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1...rollout-photos

LIVE: Rollout of NASA's Mega Moon Rocket - SLS - For Artemis 1 Mission #SLS #Artemis1 #Rollout

LIVE: Rollout of NASA's Mega Moon Rocket - SLS - For Artemis 1 Mission #SLS #Artemis1 #Rollout

[Ray Allan]

Good to see the real rocket on the pad, and not animations of it for the past 10 years. Liftoff will look very similar to a Space Shuttle launch since SLS uses nearly identical solid rocket boosters and carries four RS-25 liquid-fueled rockets in the first stage which are the same type as the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). Should be cool to watch.

[Ray Allan]

Artemis 1 NASA launch Webcast created:

Launch of NASA’s Artemis I Mission to the Moon (Official NASA Broadcast)

Launch of NASA’s Artemis I Mission to the Moon (Official NASA Broadcast)

[T.Garrett]

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-i/

Saturday September 3 is the new launch date, lets see if they can manage to get it off the ground this time.

[Ray Allan]

Originally Posted by T.Garrett

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-i/

Saturday September 9 is the new launch date, lets see if they can manage to get it off the ground this time.

I think you meant Saturday Sept. 3. If that is a no-go, the next attempt will be Monday Sept. 5. After that it won't be until October due to launch window constraints, the proper Moon phase, lighting, etc. It's also hurricane season, so weather could definitely be a factor.

[Ray Allan]

They do seem to be having a few problems.

Artemis 1 scrub and the arrogance of people like Dr. Derrick Pitts!

Artemis 1 scrub and the arrogance of people like Dr. Derrick Pitts!

[Ray Allan]

I hope Artemis launches tomorrow when the window opens at 2:17 p.m. EDT, so I don't have to get up in the predawn hours to watch it on TV like during last Monday's failed attempt.

[Nikola Bijeliti]

The launch was scrubbed again, for the same reason as before. They may not launch until October or later.

All these problems are probably due to the diverse workforce that NASA is forced to use. If these problems keep up, SpaceX could send the Lunar Starship to the moon by itself, with a crew, without any participation from NASA, and Elon Musk could pick his own crew. The Artemis spacecraft itself is actually superfluous. NASA needs SpaceX to land a crew on the moon, but SpaceX doesn't need NASA. The only limitation is that the Lunar Starship lacks a heat shield, so the crew would have to transfer to a Crew Dragon to return to earth.

[Ole Massa]

Originally Posted by Nikola Bijeliti

All these problems are probably due to the diverse workforce that NASA is forced to use.

I hope that's not the reason, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Ray Allan]

Looks like it's rolling back to the VAB.

https://www.space.com/artemis-1-moon...-weeks-repairs

[notmenomore]

From the descriptions being reported: major fueling leaks, itz apparent that the defect is in design rather than some physical anomaly. A simple physical mishap would have been easily corrected since the previous mission scrub; but it was not. Too much cheating on the engineering exams, bros, and too little real engineering ability, bros. I wonder why that is, bros?

[Ray Allan]

Originally Posted by notmenomore

From the descriptions being reported: major fueling leaks, itz apparent that the defect is in design rather than some physical anomaly. A simple physical mishap would have been easily corrected since the previous mission scrub; but it was not. Too much cheating on the engineering exams, bros, and too little real engineering ability, bros. I wonder why that is, bros?

As much as I would like to see this vehicle fly, Nikola has a valid point. Every new spacecraft and rocket has its bugs and that is the purpose of testing and test flights. Back in 1967, AS-501, the first Saturn V, sat on the pad for months before it finally launched on its maiden unmanned test flight. But SLS, even with 40-year-old Space Shuttle heritage, seems quite flawed. Chances are high it is due to NASA's and the jewSA government's diversity policy. The same thing probably screwed up Boeing's Starliner, too. If they can't get this thing off the ground, then SLS should be scrapped before any more taxpayer money is wasted (it wasn't called the 'Senate Launch System' for nothing), and SpaceX, Russia and China can go to the Moon on their own. Fuck NASA. Maybe they can still keep the Orion capsule launched by a different rocket, perhaps Delta IV Heavy or Vulcan. And DIV-H is being retired soon, so that won't even be available. I don't know if Orion is too heavy for SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, but SpaceX already has Crew Dragon. So, there isn't much future for NASA's stuff.

[Ray Allan]

They are going to try to fix it on the pad now.

https://www.space.com/nasa-replace-s...-1-moon-rocket

[T.Garrett]

Another Apollo 1 style burnt offering to the Sky Gods in the offing? The RS-25 engines being used in the first stage of Artemis were first developed by Rocketdyne back in the 1970's for the Space Shuttle. Undetected fuel leaks could cause a disastrous ignition either on the pad at launch or in the first few minutes of flight.

But Russia is 'mocked' for cutting the US off from its "outdated" rocket engines ...

Russia Mocked for Cutting US Off From Its Outdated Rocket Engines

It's official. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, has had enough of sanctions — and he says he's cutting the US off from Russian-made rocket engines.

"In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines," Rogozin said during a Russian TV broadcast, as quoted by Reuters. "Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what."

Rogozin also said that Roscosmos will no longer service rocket engines still in US possession.

Rogozin was roundly mocked for what was perceived to be an empty threat, considering that the US has an increasingly viable way to source its own rocket engines: SpaceX.

Just this morning, SpaceX deployed another 47 of its Starlink internet-beaming satellites.

"The brooms are working," SpaceNews senior writer Jeff Foust wrote in a sarcastic tweet in response to the news.

NASA has other contractors, like Northrop Grumman, to rely on for rocket parts as well. Besides, the agency has steadily distanced itself from relying on Russian-made rockets for years now.

Responding to Rogozin's latest comments, Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger pointed out in a tweet where the space agency chief went wrong, called the statements "full of bluster," and said Rogozin had misread "the state of the global launch industry, which is moving ahead while Russia continues to live in the past."

It's far from the first time Rogozin has lashed out at the international community. He's been on a particular run of controversial comments over the last few days, as Russia's forces invaded a sovereign nation in the background — actions that have already led to a significant number of casualties and political retribution.
US president Joe Biden, for instance, aimed a new round of sanctions at Roscosmos in particular, to Rogozin's great dismay.

So far, the space agency head has actively chosen to burn any remaining goodwill to the ground by making ridiculous threats.

"If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling into the United States," Rogozin wrote in a truly unhinged Twitter rant last week.

Rogozin is clearly extremely bitter about the whole thing. This week, he shared a video on Twitter showing employees at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan removing the flags of the US, Japan, and the UK from the nosecone of a Russian-made Soyuz rocket.

In many ways, Rogozin's latest comments are all political theater, especially given NASA's existing partnerships with the likes of Northrop Grumman and SpaceX.

On his recent TV interview, Rogozin claimed that Russia has shipped 122 RD-180 rocket engines to the US over the last 30 years or so. Many have powered Atlas missions since then, a family of United Launch Alliance-manufactured rockets that have been used to launch anything from the first US crewed missions into space to robotic missions to Mars.

But the US has steadily been weaning itself off from using those engines for years now.

In 2014, Congress passed legislation to stop the purchasing of RD-180 engines meant to boost the biggest variant of the Atlas rocket, the Atlas V. Strikingly, the move was in response to Russia's incursions into Ukraine at the time.

Despite the legislation, the ULA continued to use RD-180s. But then last year, ULA CEO Tory Bruno told The Verge that "we're done," referring to the company halting any future purchases of Russian-made rocket engines. "They're all sold."

"We took early delivery, if you will, with the RD-180, so I can end that relationship and not be dependent upon [Russia] because that’s what Congress asked us to do," Bruno said at the time.

The ULA's backup plan, however, is turning out to be a bit of a disaster. The company signed a contract with the Jeff Bezos-led space company Blue Origin to manufacture a different rocket engine called BE-4. Blue Origin so far has encountered significant production hurdles and has yet to deliver any launch-ready engines to the ULA.

Apart from Blue Origin, SpaceX has made significant strides in helping the US end its reliance on Russia. The Elon Musk-led company has established itself as a key player with its Merlin engine-powered Falcon 9 workhorse, which has delivered countless tons of cargo and almost half a dozen astronaut crews into orbit.

Despite Rogozin's empty threats, Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks a significant breakdown in US-Russian relations. Only time will tell whether that rift will ever heal, and whether the nations can pick up where they left off when it comes to space exploration.

But as recent history has shown, the US has established its own ways of reaching space — and will likely blaze ahead leaving Russia in the dust.

https://futurism.com/russia-mocked-c...et-engines?amp

These jews crack me up, look at the amount of political agit-prop there is even in a simple article that's supposed to be about a 'scientific subject'

PS FYI SpaceX's Merlin engine was designed by BN, a US company which has been in the space business since the 1960's. Itz not really a 'radical new design' as claimed, just the reworking of old tried-n-true basics with 2022 technologies. One RD-180, designed in the 1970s for the USSR's Buran space shuttle has five times the thrust as one Merlin engine does at sea level. The cutcock that wrote the above quoted article didn't mention that ...

[Ray Allan]

'Complete success': China tests powerful rocket engine for moon landing

A Beijing space research institute tested a new rocket engine that's twice as powerful as its American competitor in the race to put the next astronaut on the moon, according to China's space authorities.

The ground test was carried out on Monday with "complete success," the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said on Tuesday. The engine will be used to launch China's Long March 9 rockets, still under development, and propel astronauts in future missions to the moon, CASC said.

The upper stage rocket engine can generate a 25-ton force - more than twice the thrust produced by the RL10, the US-made engine that is expected to take American astronauts back to the moon. Upper stage rocket engines are used at high altitudes to generate additional boost to propel a spacecraft to its destination.

https://archive.ph/BbJNw

[T.Garrett]

I heard the leak was somewhere in the "core booster" or first stage?

Yeah an updated RL10B2 is going to be used in the ICPS of Artemis to launch the spacecraft from low earth orbit to the moon and back. The Chinese likely anticipate the need for a more powerful engine that can be reliably started and shut down numerous times during the mission to get all the equipment and materials into lunar orbit that they are gonna need for construction of the Joint Russian/Chinese moonbase.

Nasa's mission with Artemis is simply to "put the first black woman on the moon", nothing further is seriously planned and at this point it cant even get off the ground.

BTW the RL10 was the first liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be built in the US (for ICBMs) and was designed in the 1950's. Old tech that still works.

[Ray Allan]

SLS - Why so many scrubs?

SLS - Why so many scrubs?

[T.Garrett]

Originally Posted by Ray Allan

SLS - Why so many scrubs?

They are obviously concerned that their 'diverse' workforce didn't put it together right, fuel leaks in the 'core booster' could mean another Nasa failure when they light the engines ... they're afraid it might blow up in front of the entire world! Somewhat like the Challenger did in 1986 ...







They fucked up on that one, it was too cold for launch. And many of the engineering staff at Thiokol ... the company that built the SRB's for Nasa ...KNEW that the rubber seals wouldn't work in the cold temps in Florida that frigid January day and said little for fear of losing their jobs. Nasa flight ops were aware of the risk of using Thiokols solid rocket boosters in temps below freezing. There was ice all over the launch tower for shit sakes. If they had waited just one more day for warmer weather the disaster never would have happened.

But Nasa went ahead with the launch that fateful day anyway. There were too many delays already and this was a heavily politicized mission showcasing the 'inclusiveness' of the new Nasa in 1986! STS-51L had representatives of every race on earth aboard including a the first sheenie in space, Judith Resnick and the first white civilian female teacher, Christa McAuliffe who young kids across Amerika were cheering on. Instead of seeing her on teevee holding class in space they watched her plunge into the Atlantic in a spinning ball of fire.

Funny how a later shuttle mission that had another jew in the crew fell apart during reentry, 2003's STS-107.

Wherever you find jews there's bad mojo.

And the Challenger orbiter really didn't explode, it was engulfed with a cloud of hot gases from the disintegrating right (starboard) side SRB and the crew didn't die immediately ... they all suffered horrible deaths for sure, suffocated or smashed apart in the cabin of the spacecraft which eventually lost inertia and stopped climbing toward the upper atmosphere and plunged into the ocean at 200 mph from 65,000 feet. Nasa reckoned that three of them might have still been alive when the remains of Challenger hit the water but no survivors were found.

They are AFRAID that Artemis will fail, once bitten twice shy or some shit.

[Ray Allan]

Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after launch at fairly high altitude. Imagine if the SLS rocket explodes immediately after ignition, taking out Pad 39B with it. Imagine what that would do to NASA's image. No astronauts would die since this is an unmanned flight, but a catastrophic failure such as this would cancel the Artemis program in one fell swoop. Something similar happened on July 3, 1969 three weeks before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon when the second unmanned test launch of the Soviet N-1 Moon rocket exploded several seconds after launch, destroying the rocket and severely damaging the launch pad. It took nearly 2 years for another launch attempt, which was also a failure. In fact, all four N-1 rockets tested from 1969 to 1972 blew up before the USSR's manned lunar program was canceled. The failures were all similar to Artemis's scrubs - insufficient testing of the first stage rockets and fueling system. In N-1's case it was the difficulty of trying to get 33 rocket engines on the first stage to fire and function properly, of which insufficient testing was done, such as live fire testing. SpaceX's new booster, called Super Heavy has 30 Raptor engines, and SpaceX is being very cautious test-firing them, so far only a few a time. But they will all have to work flawlessly whenever their first orbital test with Starship will launch.

N1 Rocket Failure - Second Launch Attempt (1969/07/03) - Soviet Moon Rocket

N1 Rocket Failure - Second Launch Attempt (1969/07/03) - Soviet Moon Rocket

[Nikola Bijeliti]

From what I've read, the Artemis program is totally unnecessary to get men--oops, I mean the first woman and the first person of color--to the moon. The SpaceX Lunar Starship is capable of doing that all by itself. The way it's currently planned, Artemis will launch with the crew, Starship will launch empty, they will dock in lunar orbit, and Starship will take the crew down to the surface. Starship is fully capable of launching with a crew, so the entire Artemis program is unnecessary for accomplishing its own goals.

When Artemis was conceived in 2017 as a revival of the Constellation program that Obama had cancelled, it was to be similar to Apollo, with a rocket, an orbiter, and a lander. And, just as with Apollo, the rocket and orbiter were developed first, while the lander was the last element to be developed. When NASA put out contracts for the lander, they were anticipating designs similar to the Apollo Lunar Module, but SpaceX came up with something that could more or less do the whole mission all by itself, without the rest of the stack. (The SpaceX Lunar Starship lacks a heatshield, so the crew would have to transfer to a crew dragon in earth orbit in order to return to earth.) Furthermore, the SpaceX Lunar Starship costs much less than Artemis, but it would be embarrassing to cancel Artemis at this point, so they're having Starship launch empty so that the much more expensive and less efficient Artemis won't appear to be the colossal waste of money that it is.

If the Artemis should blow up on the launch pad, it would be a disaster, but it wouldn't be a big deal as far as getting a crew to the moon is concerned. SpaceX has more or less taken over the U.S. manned--excuse me, crewed--space program, anyway. NASA hasn't launched a crew into space since 2011; all U.S. crewed launces since then have been on SpaceX Crew Dragon (and I'm not holding my breath for the Boeing Starliner). So SpaceX might as well take over the lunar program as well, and leave NASA to do what it does best, send robotic probes to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond.