NASA has been forced to delay a critical fueling test for its Artemis 2 moon rocket due to unusually cold weather forecasted to hit the Space Coast this weekend.
The wet dress rehearsal for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was expected to begin last night (Jan. 29). An initial call to stations for Artemis 2 mission teams and the beginning of a 49-hour simulated launch countdown was set to start around 8:00 p.m. EST (0100 GMT, Jan. 30). The wet dress rehearsal is the last major test SLS has to pass before being cleared to launch a crew of astronauts to the moon — that launch will mark the first time in over 50 years humans have headed toward Earth's natural satellite.
"Teams and preparations at the launch pad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal," NASA wrote in an update. "However, adjusting the timeline for the test will position NASA for success during the rehearsal, as the expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions."
Cold weather and its effect on SLS and launchpad ground infrastructure are variables NASA takes very seriously. The same solid rocket booster (SRB) technology and components used during the space shuttle era have been refitted to power SLS. For context, yesterday's originally scheduled call to stations came just one day after the 40th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, which exploded during launch due to the effects of sub-freezing temperatures on hardware aboard the vehicle's SRBs resulting in the tragic loss of the mission's crew.
Once things warm up and NASA begins the wet dress rehearsal, the two-day test will put SLS through its paces. Ground operators will exercise the full scenario of an actual mission countdown, running the clock to just 30 seconds prior to engine ignition, powering on the rocket and fully fueling its two stages with cryogenic fuels. During the clock's terminal count, beginning at T-10 minutes, teams will be put through a series of holds and count recycles to ensure readiness under a variety of scenarios.
For NASA to actually try to launch the Artemis 2 mission in February, nearly every aspect of the wet dress rehearsal needs to go smoothly. During the first Artemis 1 wet dress rehearsal in April 2022, hydrogen leaks and issues with the tower's umbilicals while fueling SLS led to three rollbacks of the rocket to NASA's vehicle assembly building. The mission was finally cleared to launch six months later, in November 2022. The first Artemis 2 launch window extends to Feb. 11, but range availability could cut those opportunities short.
NASA is also targeting Feb. 11 for the launch of SpaceX's Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). That crew's arrival to the space station will end a short period of reduced occupancy aboard the orbital lab, which has been operating with a skeleton crew of three since the medical evacuation of Crew-11 astronauts ended their mission a month earlier than expected.
While they await the SLS wet dress rehearsal, the Artemis 2 astronauts remain in quarantine ahead of their launch to the moon. They include NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman as mission commander, Victor Glover as mission pilot and Christina Koch as mission specialist, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen as another mission specialist.
Once Artemis 2 launches, the Orion space capsule atop the rocket will carry the quartet on a trajectory around the moon and back on a mission that lasts about 10 days. The crew's test flight will further qualify the Orion spacecraft for crewed operations and pave the way for Artemis 3, which NASA says will be the first mission in the program to land astronauts on the lunar surface. If Artemis 2 goes smoothly, Artemis 3 is expected to occur sometime in 2028.
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