There, it and other pieces of the rocket including two strap-on rocket boosters, a second stage and the Orion crew capsule will be put together. But the initial look is that everything worked perfectly.”Īfter some refurbishment, the core stage will be packed up and shipped by barge to Kennedy Space Center, perhaps before the end of April, according to Julie Bassler, a manager for the rocket. “We’ll be working through that over the next couple of weeks as we do very detailed inspections of the hardware. “From our initial look at all the data we achieved all of the objectives, even our secondary objectives,” Mr. Seeking more data on the performance of the stage and the engines, engineers fixed the issues and tried again. But when a piece of equipment did not operate quite as expected, the rocket’s computer shut down the engines after only about one minute. NASA tried to complete this test in January. “We were in great shape,” said John Shannon, vice president and program manager for the Space Launch System at Boeing, which built the core stage. But officials said temperature sensors on the engine below the layers of cork did not measure excessive heat, and the problem would not occur during an actual launch when the upper atmosphere would be too thin for fire to burn. Eastern time, it was on, and when it was on, it was immediately deafening.Īt one point, cameras beneath the test stand showed flames at the base of one engine where cork insulation caught fire. The rocket was switched off, and then at 4:40 p.m. But from the safety of the viewing area for visitors, there was no countdown to be heard and there was no gentle buildup of the engines. The only sounds in the area were gusts of wind rustling the tree line and the murmuring of nervous onlookers. On the day of the test, the sky was so blue it seemed to have never known a cloud. At this site, NASA once tested the Saturn 5 rocket used for Apollo as well as a prototype of the space shuttle. Louis, Miss., on a giant stand almost twice as tall as Disney World’s Cinderella Castle. It was carried out at remote Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Thursday’s test, called a hot fire, was a crucial step for the rocket. The Verge and The Washington Post reported that former Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who was a key player in pushing NASA to develop the Space Launch System, was expected to be nominated to be the agency’s next administrator. program costs and schedule.”īut the Biden administration appears to be keeping to this path. Another report by the inspector general in 2020 said NASA “continues to struggle managing S.L.S. In an audit in 2018, NASA’s inspector general blamed poor performance by Boeing, the main contractor building the booster stage, for much of the delay. NASA has so far spent more than $10 billion on the rocket and more than $16 billion on the Orion capsule where the astronauts will sit. As the date of the first launch slipped several times, the price tag rose.
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