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NASA ha admitted that it is progressing slowly a very very cautiously. You know it was like 8 years for Apollo and that was when Congress didn't meddle like it has with SLS and Artemis. I'm not defending the program but merely reminding that NASA has been given marching orders.
Last edited by bknight; 2021-Jan-08 at 05:53 PM. Reason: Spelling errors on phone entry
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From NASA's website:
So reducing cost and time is indeed the official goal. Time will tell if that is indeed the case. As far as time is concerned, Orion is taking as long as STS plus Saturn V to develop. SLS block 1 will, estimated, equal STS development time. But you can argue that they did not try to reduce development time compared to those projects, but compared to an SLS using all new hardware.To reduce cost and development time, NASA is using proven hardware from the space shuttle and other exploration programs
As for costs, current estimates (...) put it well below Apollo and below STS, however with a launch cost estimate of over 2 billion (some say 5 billion) you can't use it nowhere near as much as STS and still be cheaper. Where you can argue the SLS mission profile doesn't ask for a launch rate like STS. For 13 launches it is projected to be cheaper than Apollo, but of course we're somewhere in Block 1 development which is far from the final product and cost.
So yes, they may still reach their objective of reduced cost and time, based on how you look at it. Just don't look at what the competition is doing.
Perhaps there's also an element that the management changes post Columbia threw out the "success oriented management" so far into cautiousness that even in development there is no philosophical room for a "let's see how long till potential fireball" kind of approach using a cheap test article.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Look I'm as frustrated as you appear to be at NASA's slow approach to development of a manned mission beyond LEO. SLS and Orion have been in development for a bit over six years. The Saturn V took six plus year to launch 405 and that was when money was no objects but time was "waste anything but time". Apollo CM took a little bit over five years to fly and that included a year and a half stoppage after the fire in Apollo 1.
So maybe it seems like a long time but those two programs are about as long as their predecessors.
My hope is I live to view another human walking on the Lunar surface and they might just be Chinese or launched by SpaceX or lastly by the SLS system.
I will admit that IMO the SLS program is nuts for the US to pursue but we are.
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Orion development started in 2006. It will be at least 15 years old by the time it does a manned flight. It was 8 years when it did an unmanned flight in 2014. That's the numbers I used. The name has changed somewhere along the way when Constellation became SLS. And SLS development has seen 1.5 billion/year funding since 2011, which is also 9 years ago (and of course some things were carried over from Ares before that, like the SRB's). The Block 0 center stage indeed went into detailed development in 2014, so 6 years. That part would be comparable to STS and Saturn V in terms of development span, if it doesn't take too many more years.
I'd rather seen them spend the brains and money on enabling technologies such as oxygen, water, fuel generators for lunar and martian environments, in-space refuelling, maybe heatshield technology, an updated Deep Space Network... It's not like there's a lack of talent and possibilities in NASA and the companies working on SLS.
By the way, it's not just the way things go at NASA that frustrates me. The other agencies are not doing better. ESA forever has almost a manned capability since 1987. Vega took forever (14 years). Arianes are becoming less and less commercially relevant, though in its defense ESA only needed 7 years to develop an irrelevant rocket with Ariane 6, if it launches this year. In the field of enabling technologies they seem to have done better than with their launchers: SCRAMjet research took forever too, but military and commercial applications appear to be in use/in development by now.
Space agencies should play the role NACA did for aircraft; you don't need space agencies to develop entire launchers in 2020 unless they're really about new frontiers (like the X-planes and things like aerospykes or lifting bodies back in the day). Point in case is that even the new frontiers are being explored by commercial companies these days.
Last edited by Nicolas; 2021-Jan-08 at 08:08 PM.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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No that was been Constellation.Originally Posted by Nicolas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_...een%20produced.
The project was redesigned after that date 2010. It has been some time since its initial flight, but not much more would be gained launching it on top of another MEO mission. Waiting on SLS.Orion was originally conceived by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to be used in NASA's Constellation program. Lockheed Martin's proposal defeated a competing proposal by Northrop Grumman, and was selected by NASA in 2006 to be the CEV. Originally designed with a service module featuring a new "Orion Main Engine" and a pair of circular solar panels, the spacecraft was to be launched atop the Ares I rocket. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, Orion was heavily redesigned for use in NASA's Journey to Mars initiative; later named Moon to Mars. The SLS replaced the Ares I as Orion's primary launch vehicle, and the service module was replaced with a design based on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle. A development version of Orion's CM was launched in 2014 during Exploration Flight Test-1, while at least four test articles have been produced.
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NASA is finally ready to test-fire the engines of its SLS megarocket. The delayed hot-fire engine test of the rocket's core booster is set for Jan. 16.
https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-megar...re-engine-test
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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Trump pushed for a moon landing in 2024. It’s not going to happen. Biden will likely keep NASA’s Artemis program, but on a different timeline.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...asa-moon-2024/
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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NASA is targeting a two-hour test window that opens at 5 p.m. EST Saturday, Jan. 16, for the hot fire test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Live coverage will begin at 4:20 p.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website, followed by a post-test briefing approximately two hours after the test concludes.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...-moon-missions
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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Looking forward to it.
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Heads up: live broadcast starts in 24 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELHOXi2t3lk
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Test expected in 30 minutes (5PM EST)
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Test expected within 1 hour...
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-megar...e-test-webcast
broadcast link
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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T-1:00 min. To test? From hold?
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Looked like a success! Quite long static fire too.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Good start and ran for a couple minutes, but not full eight.
I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
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Was it supposed to do a full duration?
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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From the audio commentary, the answer appears to be yes.
I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
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OK. Things appeared to go well so I assume a parameter was creeping outside limits.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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That's not usually what "Major Component Failure" means.
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So basically the test seems to have been a fail, shutdown after one minute, well short of the five the test was supposed to last:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/01/1...status-center/
Remember this comes on top of a less than 100% completed WDR.Based on an analysis of the video and audio aired on NASA TV, the first sign of trouble during the abbreviated SLS hot fire test came about 50 seconds after engine ignition, when an engineer on the test team declared an "MCF" or a "Major Component Failure" on Engine No. 4.
"Copy that, but we're still running -- we've still got four good engines right?" the test conductor replied.
"Copy that," a member of the test team said.
At about T+plus 1 minute, 7 seconds, video showed at least one of the core stage engines appearing to be in a shutdown sequence. Seconds later, an engineer mentioned "violations" on the test communications loop, followed by verbal confirmation of engine shutdown from the test conductor at T+plus 1 minute, 22 seconds.
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It was supposed to be 8 minutes. There was a minimum of 250 seconds if the test had to be cut short for some reason that didn't invalidate the test, but it only made 67 s.
At least they didn't skip the Green Run, like they were considering at one point. That would have had the core shutting down about halfway through the booster burn.
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Yeah but I have no doubt they are currently working on some way to spin this test as being adequate to move forward, much as they did with the WDR.
Established Member
The SLS Green Run burn aborted after 67.7 seconds.
Cause: a Major Component Failure (MCF) of engine #4.
A FID (Failure ID) from #4 hit the controller, which then triggered a Major Component Failure (MCF) and did the shutdown. There was also a flash from the engine.
Also; even though they've done several Wet Dress Rehearsals (WDRs), this was the first time tanks filled with cryogenic propellants were pressurized to flight levels (!!)
There are spare engines at Stennis, and the first guess at a turnaround for Green Run 2 is 3-4 weeks. Bridenstine didn't sound very confident about Artemis 1 flying this year.
https://youtu.be/ynondmpAdMg
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OK that doesn't sound good. I had to mute the video while I watched it, and somewhere between "grass in control" and "ho shutdown" I figured that the automatic subtitles weren't really reliable. So I missed the details in theaudio.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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reading an article over at Ars Technica and it pointed out that the SLS' most ardent advocate is on their way out:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...nts=1&start=40The original deal was cut between two senators, Bill Nelson of Florida and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, but they are both now out of office. In recent years, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby—who chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee—has emerged as the rocket’s most potent backer. This is not a surprise given that the rocket is designed and managed at Marshall Space Flight Center in northern Alabama.
However, with Democrats taking a narrow majority in the Senate, Shelby has lost his chair in the upcoming session of Congress. Although he will retain considerable say, he will no longer be able to effectively dictate NASA’s budget.
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I expect them to waive the 12 month limit on the SRBs, like they did the redundancy requirements for the Orion's power supply system, but I doubt they'll try to launch a vehicle that can't even finish a static fire.
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Hey, give them a break, after all these engines are new, uncharted territory...Erm, anyway, Scott Manley has a video on the static fire so I'll be up to speed on the details soon. Of course it's very likely the problem occurred in one of the many new components as well.
Last edited by Nicolas; 2021-Jan-17 at 07:39 PM.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
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Don’t know about that uncharted territory. Apparently one of the engines on the test flew on an STS mission in the late 1990s so....
Manley says the failure may have been in the vector systems which are different than what was used on the STS. As always, stay tuned.
ETA: or did you have the sarcasm light on and i missed it?
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I'm pretty sure it was sarcasm. Did notice Scott Manley being more than a little sarcastic pointing this is the first time anything on the SLS finished ahead of schedule.Don’t know about that uncharted territory. Apparently one of the engines on the test flew on an STS mission in the late 1990s so....
Manley says the failure may have been in the vector systems which are different than what was used on the STS. As always, stay tuned.
ETA: or did you have the sarcasm light on and i missed it?
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