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Artist rendering of the first Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle with the Orion spacecraft on the platform prior to launch. The Orion probe and megarocket SLS – together called Block 1 – and the ground systems of the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, will be part of the Artemis 1 lunar mission, scheduled for launch in 2021. Image via Wikipedia.
Though the coronavirus pandemic slowed testing of NASA’s space launch system – a rocket more powerful than the Saturn V that propelled the first astronauts to the moon – the months-long process is finally resuming at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. . Boeing, the company NASA commissioned to lead the rocket’s construction, is now engaged in a basic eight-step test process, dubbed the green ride. It will culminate in a hot fire test, in which the rocket will be tied up, but it will ignite its engines and resist every step of a launch as if it were really in place. Initially scheduled to start through mid-November 2020, this final test is now expected to take place within the next three to six weeks, NASA says. He hopes to keep this test target, to keep the schedule in line with the rocket’s debut launch on the Artemis 1 moon mission between mid- to late 2021.
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Clyde Sellers, a security specialist at the NASA center, told EarthSky:
It is extremely rewarding to watch. It is the first time this test has been performed and for a new original rocket, the most powerful ever built.
Although the green run series began with a modal test – a kind of vibration test – conducted in January 2020, the process was significantly slowed by the coronavirus that swept the world. The agency’s leadership halted on-site work in Stennis after the pandemic hit the region in March. The center began to slowly reopen in mid-May and the green race team completed the second test on the main stage (the orange “body” of the rocket) in late June.
This test ensured that the software and other electrical interfaces involved in the rocket and test bed were working properly.
Since then the rocket has undergone and passed the next four steps in the green run series:
– Test 3, in which the engineers inspected all safety systems that interrupt operations during the test. During this test, they simulated potential problems.
– Test 4, the first test of each of the main propulsion system components that connect to the engines. Command and control operations have been checked and the central stage has been checked for any fluid or gas leaks.
– Test 5, in which the engineers ensured that the thrust vector control system can move the four engines and checked all related hydraulic systems.
– Test 6, which simulated the launch countdown, including step-by-step refueling procedures. Main stage avionics were activated and propellant loading and pressurization simulated. The test team practiced and validated the countdown timeline and sequence of events.
This helpful chart illustrates what the 8 parts of the green ride will test, as well as the individual components of the SLS Core stage (orange rocket body). Image via NASA.
The last two tests scheduled for approximately next month – test 7 and test 8 – will be a “wet suit test” which will see the rocket stage loaded with fuel and the full hot fire test to ensure the vehicle is truly ready to go. the launch. It is an intensive procedure, but crucial for engineers to be sure the vehicle is safe.
Following the hot fire test, engineers will refurbish the main stage and configure it for its trip to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where more tests await the main stage. But ultimately, hopefully, the next time the RS-25 engines fire up it will be for NASA’s first unmanned Artemis 1 mission – the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will allow for human exploration. on the Moon and Mars – and perhaps someday in deep space.
The orange SLS center stage is being tested on Test Bench B-2 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. Image via NASA.
The main stage will later be assembled with the other parts of the rocket and the Orion spacecraft, the crew module designed to transport humans into space.
Drawing on more than half a century of research and development, the Orion module expects to be flexible enough to transport humans to a variety of destinations beyond our moon. The disruption system, which will provide the crew with the ability to escape in an emergency on the launch pad, was successfully tested at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 2010. A series of launch and landing simulations at Hydro NASA’s Impact Basin tested how the module will fare when it splashes into the ocean at the end of its mission.
Orion’s tests concluded in 2018 after a series of parachute falls, and it is expected to fly in the first Artemis launch.
Unlike previous human launch systems, SLS is designed to grow and evolve over time, with system flexibility that allows engineers to use a design today but adapt it later for future missions. The sellers added:
SLS will improve our understanding of our solar system and humanity’s capabilities.
A comparison of NASA’s SLS megarocket with the Saturn V and other rockets. What is labeled “initial configuration” here is now called Block 1, the rocket being tested in late 2020, in preparation for a launch in 2021 as part of the Artemis 1 moon mission. Illustration via Space.com.
Bottom Line: Although the coronavirus pandemic slowed testing of NASA’s space launch system, a rocket more powerful than the Saturn V lunar rocket, the months-long process is finally resuming at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The green-run tests will culminate with a hot-fire test scheduled for the next few weeks, according to a NASA schedule that will keep it on track for its first launch of the Artemis 1 lunar mission by the end of 2021.
Read more from the BBC: NASA’s new “megarocket” set for critical testing
Read More From NASA: Around the Moon with NASA’s First SLS Launch with Orion
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