A Faulty Sensor May Have Scrubbed The Launch Of Nasa S Massive Sls Rocket

Trevor Mahlmann After clearing an attempted launch of the Space Launch System rocket on Monday, NASA officials said they are working on a second attempt to fly the Artemis I mission on Saturday, September 3. NASA flight controllers aborted the first launch attempt after they could not verify that one of the SLS rocket’s four main engines — engine no. 3 — had been properly cooled to a temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit prior to ignition. The engines must be cooled to very low temperatures to handle the injection of very cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA’s SLS rocket program manager John Honeycutt said his engineering team believed the engine had cooled from ambient temperature to near the required level, but that it was not measured correctly. from a faulty temperature sensor. “The way the sensor behaves doesn’t match her physical condition,” Honeycutt said. The problem for NASA is that the sensor cannot be easily replaced and would most likely require a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few kilometers from the launch pad. That would delay the rocket’s launch until at least October, and the space agency is starting to worry about wear and tear on a rocket that has now been shelved for nearly a full year. Honeycutt said he is certain liquid hydrogen was flowing into engine no. 3 during Monday’s countdown and that other sensors, including pressure readings, indicated the engine was in an environment that would have cooled it properly. Therefore, he said, his team is working on a “flight logic” design that would allow the rocket to launch without getting good data from the temperature sensor in the engine. Advertising
“We will look at all the other data we have and [will] use it to make an informed decision,” he said. As such, NASA’s current plan includes some work on the launch pad today, including inspecting an area where there was a small hydrogen leak during Monday’s countdown. Then, if officials are satisfied with those inspections and their flight rationale for addressing the faulty temperature sensor, the service will begin counting down Thursday. Under that schedule, fueling operations would begin Saturday morning, before opening a two-hour launch window at 2:17 p.m. ET (18:17 UTC). To give the launch team more time to work on engine cooling, the process known as “conditioning” the engines will begin earlier in the countdown than on Monday. It was not immediately clear from Tuesday’s press conference what the consequences of launching with a hotter-than-normal main engine would be. From a physical standpoint, the ignition of supercooled propellants in a hotter than expected engine would likely cause severe damage to the RS-25 engine’s turbopump, at least. Obviously, therefore, NASA would not launch the SLS rocket without great confidence in its flight rationale. NASA has until September 5 to launch the booster before it is removed from the pad for refurbishment. As the September 3 launch date approaches, the space agency will be closely monitoring the weather forecast in addition to managing technical issues. Although storms often develop along the Florida coast during summer afternoons, launch weatherman Mike Berger said onshore flow should be quite strong this weekend. This should push the sea breeze further inland and potentially allow some opportunities to pop up during the two hour window. If weather scuppers the effort, NASA is taking steps to attempt a September 5 launch. Officials insisted during Tuesday’s news conference that they were confident of going ahead with a launch attempt. Although the space agency heavily promoted the first Artemis I launch attempt on Monday—the launch of an unpaid Orion spacecraft to the Moon was greeted with celebrity appearances, social media promotion and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Florida spacecraft—NASA has the vehicle power test has not yet been completed. Still, the space agency hopes to be able to fully fuel the rocket on Saturday and count up to T-0 without further problems.

title: “A Faulty Sensor May Have Scrubbed The Launch Of Nasa S Massive Sls Rocket Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-27” author: “Robert Martin”

Trevor Mahlmann After clearing an attempted launch of the Space Launch System rocket on Monday, NASA officials said they are working on a second attempt to fly the Artemis I mission on Saturday, September 3. NASA flight controllers aborted the first launch attempt after they could not verify that one of the SLS rocket’s four main engines — engine no. 3 — had been properly cooled to a temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit prior to ignition. The engines must be cooled to very low temperatures to handle the injection of very cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA’s SLS rocket program manager John Honeycutt said his engineering team believed the engine had cooled from ambient temperature to near the required level, but that it was not measured correctly. from a faulty temperature sensor. “The way the sensor behaves doesn’t match her physical condition,” Honeycutt said. The problem for NASA is that the sensor cannot be easily replaced and would most likely require a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few kilometers from the launch pad. That would delay the rocket’s launch until at least October, and the space agency is starting to worry about wear and tear on a rocket that has now been shelved for nearly a full year. Honeycutt said he is certain liquid hydrogen was flowing into engine no. 3 during Monday’s countdown and that other sensors, including pressure readings, indicated the engine was in an environment that would have cooled it properly. Therefore, he said, his team is working on a “flight logic” design that would allow the rocket to launch without getting good data from the temperature sensor in the engine. Advertising
“We will look at all the other data we have and [will] use it to make an informed decision,” he said. As such, NASA’s current plan includes some work on the launch pad today, including inspecting an area where there was a small hydrogen leak during Monday’s countdown. Then, if officials are satisfied with those inspections and their flight rationale for addressing the faulty temperature sensor, the service will begin counting down Thursday. Under that schedule, fueling operations would begin Saturday morning, before opening a two-hour launch window at 2:17 p.m. ET (18:17 UTC). To give the launch team more time to work on engine cooling, the process known as “conditioning” the engines will begin earlier in the countdown than on Monday. It was not immediately clear from Tuesday’s press conference what the consequences of launching with a hotter-than-normal main engine would be. From a physical standpoint, the ignition of supercooled propellants in a hotter than expected engine would likely cause severe damage to the RS-25 engine’s turbopump, at least. Obviously, therefore, NASA would not launch the SLS rocket without great confidence in its flight rationale. NASA has until September 5 to launch the booster before it is removed from the pad for refurbishment. As the September 3 launch date approaches, the space agency will be closely monitoring the weather forecast in addition to managing technical issues. Although storms often develop along the Florida coast during summer afternoons, launch weatherman Mike Berger said onshore flow should be quite strong this weekend. This should push the sea breeze further inland and potentially allow some opportunities to pop up during the two hour window. If weather scuppers the effort, NASA is taking steps to attempt a September 5 launch. Officials insisted during Tuesday’s news conference that they were confident of going ahead with a launch attempt. Although the space agency heavily promoted the first Artemis I launch attempt on Monday—the launch of an unpaid Orion spacecraft to the Moon was greeted with celebrity appearances, social media promotion and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Florida spacecraft—NASA has the vehicle power test has not yet been completed. Still, the space agency hopes to be able to fully fuel the rocket on Saturday and count up to T-0 without further problems.

title: “A Faulty Sensor May Have Scrubbed The Launch Of Nasa S Massive Sls Rocket Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-06” author: “Roger Broyles”

Trevor Mahlmann After clearing an attempted launch of the Space Launch System rocket on Monday, NASA officials said they are working on a second attempt to fly the Artemis I mission on Saturday, September 3. NASA flight controllers aborted the first launch attempt after they could not verify that one of the SLS rocket’s four main engines — engine no. 3 — had been properly cooled to a temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit prior to ignition. The engines must be cooled to very low temperatures to handle the injection of very cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA’s SLS rocket program manager John Honeycutt said his engineering team believed the engine had cooled from ambient temperature to near the required level, but that it was not measured correctly. from a faulty temperature sensor. “The way the sensor behaves doesn’t match her physical condition,” Honeycutt said. The problem for NASA is that the sensor cannot be easily replaced and would most likely require a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few kilometers from the launch pad. That would delay the rocket’s launch until at least October, and the space agency is starting to worry about wear and tear on a rocket that has now been shelved for nearly a full year. Honeycutt said he is certain liquid hydrogen was flowing into engine no. 3 during Monday’s countdown and that other sensors, including pressure readings, indicated the engine was in an environment that would have cooled it properly. Therefore, he said, his team is working on a “flight logic” design that would allow the rocket to launch without getting good data from the temperature sensor in the engine. Advertising
“We will look at all the other data we have and [will] use it to make an informed decision,” he said. As such, NASA’s current plan includes some work on the launch pad today, including inspecting an area where there was a small hydrogen leak during Monday’s countdown. Then, if officials are satisfied with those inspections and their flight rationale for addressing the faulty temperature sensor, the service will begin counting down Thursday. Under that schedule, fueling operations would begin Saturday morning, before opening a two-hour launch window at 2:17 p.m. ET (18:17 UTC). To give the launch team more time to work on engine cooling, the process known as “conditioning” the engines will begin earlier in the countdown than on Monday. It was not immediately clear from Tuesday’s press conference what the consequences of launching with a hotter-than-normal main engine would be. From a physical standpoint, the ignition of supercooled propellants in a hotter than expected engine would likely cause severe damage to the RS-25 engine’s turbopump, at least. Obviously, therefore, NASA would not launch the SLS rocket without great confidence in its flight rationale. NASA has until September 5 to launch the booster before it is removed from the pad for refurbishment. As the September 3 launch date approaches, the space agency will be closely monitoring the weather forecast in addition to managing technical issues. Although storms often develop along the Florida coast during summer afternoons, launch weatherman Mike Berger said onshore flow should be quite strong this weekend. This should push the sea breeze further inland and potentially allow some opportunities to pop up during the two hour window. If weather scuppers the effort, NASA is taking steps to attempt a September 5 launch. Officials insisted during Tuesday’s news conference that they were confident of going ahead with a launch attempt. Although the space agency heavily promoted the first Artemis I launch attempt on Monday—the launch of an unpaid Orion spacecraft to the Moon was greeted with celebrity appearances, social media promotion and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Florida spacecraft—NASA has the vehicle power test has not yet been completed. Still, the space agency hopes to be able to fully fuel the rocket on Saturday and count up to T-0 without further problems.

title: “A Faulty Sensor May Have Scrubbed The Launch Of Nasa S Massive Sls Rocket Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-11” author: “Allison Rowan”

Trevor Mahlmann After clearing an attempted launch of the Space Launch System rocket on Monday, NASA officials said they are working on a second attempt to fly the Artemis I mission on Saturday, September 3. NASA flight controllers aborted the first launch attempt after they could not verify that one of the SLS rocket’s four main engines — engine no. 3 — had been properly cooled to a temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit prior to ignition. The engines must be cooled to very low temperatures to handle the injection of very cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA’s SLS rocket program manager John Honeycutt said his engineering team believed the engine had cooled from ambient temperature to near the required level, but that it was not measured correctly. from a faulty temperature sensor. “The way the sensor behaves doesn’t match her physical condition,” Honeycutt said. The problem for NASA is that the sensor cannot be easily replaced and would most likely require a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a few kilometers from the launch pad. That would delay the rocket’s launch until at least October, and the space agency is starting to worry about wear and tear on a rocket that has now been shelved for nearly a full year. Honeycutt said he is certain liquid hydrogen was flowing into engine no. 3 during Monday’s countdown and that other sensors, including pressure readings, indicated the engine was in an environment that would have cooled it properly. Therefore, he said, his team is working on a “flight logic” design that would allow the rocket to launch without getting good data from the temperature sensor in the engine. Advertising
“We will look at all the other data we have and [will] use it to make an informed decision,” he said. As such, NASA’s current plan includes some work on the launch pad today, including inspecting an area where there was a small hydrogen leak during Monday’s countdown. Then, if officials are satisfied with those inspections and their flight rationale for addressing the faulty temperature sensor, the service will begin counting down Thursday. Under that schedule, fueling operations would begin Saturday morning, before opening a two-hour launch window at 2:17 p.m. ET (18:17 UTC). To give the launch team more time to work on engine cooling, the process known as “conditioning” the engines will begin earlier in the countdown than on Monday. It was not immediately clear from Tuesday’s press conference what the consequences of launching with a hotter-than-normal main engine would be. From a physical standpoint, the ignition of supercooled propellants in a hotter than expected engine would likely cause severe damage to the RS-25 engine’s turbopump, at least. Obviously, therefore, NASA would not launch the SLS rocket without great confidence in its flight rationale. NASA has until September 5 to launch the booster before it is removed from the pad for refurbishment. As the September 3 launch date approaches, the space agency will be closely monitoring the weather forecast in addition to managing technical issues. Although storms often develop along the Florida coast during summer afternoons, launch weatherman Mike Berger said onshore flow should be quite strong this weekend. This should push the sea breeze further inland and potentially allow some opportunities to pop up during the two hour window. If weather scuppers the effort, NASA is taking steps to attempt a September 5 launch. Officials insisted during Tuesday’s news conference that they were confident of going ahead with a launch attempt. Although the space agency heavily promoted the first Artemis I launch attempt on Monday—the launch of an unpaid Orion spacecraft to the Moon was greeted with celebrity appearances, social media promotion and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Florida spacecraft—NASA has the vehicle power test has not yet been completed. Still, the space agency hopes to be able to fully fuel the rocket on Saturday and count up to T-0 without further problems.