The SLS Moon Rocket Exceeded Expectations With its Historic Liftoff, NASA Says
The SLS Moon Rocket Exceeded Expectations With Its Historic Liftoff, NASA Says:
NASA has conducted a preliminary review of the inaugural Space Launch System launch, saying the rocket met and even exceeded all expectations.
On Wednesday, NASA released its initial analysis of SLS' performance as it lifted off on November 16, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the Moon for the space agency's Artemis 1 mission. "The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket was simply eye-watering," Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, said in a statement. "While our mission with Orion is still underway and we continue to learn over the course of our flight, the rocket's systems performed as designed and as expected in every case."
[...] Engineers will continue to study SLS' performance during the Artemis 1 launch over the next several months as NASA prepares to build the next rocket for the launch of Artemis 2 (currently scheduled for 2024). "With this amazing Moon rocket, we've laid the foundation for Artemis and for our long-term presence at the Moon," John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said in the statement. The performance of the rocket and the team supporting its maiden voyage was simply outstanding."
NASA also released a short slick video of the launch.
NASA's Orion Spacecraft Readies Itself for Long Journey Home
NASA's Orion spacecraft readies itself for long journey home:
Two weeks after leaving Earth on a mission to the moon, NASA's Orion spacecraft fired its main engine as part of efforts to put it on a course for the long journey home.
NASA official Jim Free shared the news in a tweet on Thursday, saying: "We've left lunar orbit! Orion fired its main engine today to exit distant retrograde orbit and set itself on a course for Earth."
[...] As Free noted, the burn is one of two maneuvers that the uncrewed Orion spacecraft needs to make to get home. All being well, the vehicle will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Florida on Friday, December 11.
[...] The most powerful rocket ever to have been launched propelled the Orion capsule toward the moon in a mission designed to test all of the flight systems for the Artemis II voyage that will take the same route a couple of years from now, but with astronauts aboard.
During its journey so far, NASA's spacecraft has come within just 80 miles of the lunar surface and also traveled 268,553 miles from Earth — the furthest point from our planet that a human-rated spacecraft has flown.
The mission sets NASA up nicely for the crewed Artemis II mission, as well as Artemis III, which will endeavor to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
NASA is keen to return to the moon for a number of reasons that include a need to demonstrate new technologies, capabilities, and business approaches required for the human exploration of Mars and possibly beyond. It also gives the space agency the chance to broaden its commercial and international partnerships, while at the same time inspiring a new generation of young people to get involved in STEM subjects.
[Ed.: The splashdown will be in the Pacific off of San Diego, not Florida. --hubie]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday December 06, @10:50AM (4 children)
It is strange that despite the hardware and software working exactly as designed modern space exploration has become almost routine. So much so that rather than being impressed by what has been achieved we just expect everything to work as planned.
It is the aspects of space rocketry that do not work or are not ready on schedule that result in the most active discussions.
Perhaps the manned Artemis 2 will get a more attentive reception from the public which will increase still further with the next moon landing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @02:49PM (2 children)
I'm waiting for the first landing, when a *woman* and a *person of color* will be on the trip. That's so much more impressive than having white men doing it. BTW, I'm curious, can the *woman* and *person of color* be the same person, or do we need separate people to signal our virtue? And what if the *woman* is a *trans woman*. Does that count?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday December 06, @07:12PM (1 child)
A disabled lesbian trans woman of color would signal much more virtue on a manned Artemis 2 mission.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @09:52PM
*womynned Artemis 2 mission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, @03:03PM
It's like some have said. Space travel is safe enough once people stop clapping and cheering just because stuff takes off or lands (without blowing up).
Then the next milestone could be when they start complaining that the food and/or in-flight entertainment sucks, etc. 😉
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @11:56AM (1 child)
The SLS Moon Rocket Exceeded all but the most pessimistic budget and timeline Expectations With its Historic Liftoff...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 06, @12:48PM
Well, I'd believe that it exceeded expectations: It actually worked, at all. Which I'm sure the suits are mad at the engineers about, because if it failed then the suits could sell even more contracts to NASA.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @02:15PM (5 children)
Years behind schedule, billions over budget, cobbled together using left-over Shuttle parts. So impractical that they will (at best) only be able to launch one every couple of years, And, only able to accomplish their mission by relying on SpaceX to supply the critical component (the lander).
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 06, @02:55PM
Very much that. NASA would have something big to celebrate, if they had a reusable rocket and could launch multiple times per year. Sure, SpaceX is doing it multiple times per month and sometimes even on the same day. So, "wow big rocket flew", isn't quite as interesting. When you have a company that's routinely launching and is planning on a "near sci-fi" re-usable Starship that could go to the Moon and/or Mars. And then possibly make the return trip as well. All using the ship/rocket.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06, @04:04PM (3 children)
We all know Musk is a shifty bastard, but if he introduces a 1 in 10 defect into his Falcon 9s (say to cut some corners), we'll find out within the year. The high launch tempo means they'll run across that problem soon. Musk neither has time to get away from ground zero (say by making it a successor's problem) nor time to add more such defects (unless he added a bunch at once). Finally, it'll be relatively easy to unravel - say reset to a year ago or so, and then fix things from there.
Suppose a NASA management team does the same to SLS. At one launch every two years, it'll be 20 years on average before the defect shows up. Good chance they'll be retired by the time it happens. And who knows how many more such defects will happen by then? You might have to revise many years or even decades of poor decisions in order to get the SLS to the expected level of safety and reliability.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Tuesday December 06, @04:41PM (2 children)
Are you suggesting that Elon Musk is going to tell his employees to tell his rocket engineers to make 1/10 of these rockets not lift off, or fail during launch?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday December 06, @09:44PM
No, he's saying they could cut corners until it has a 1 in 10 chance of failing. It's not something an ethical engineer would do, but look up the history of the exploding Pinto to see how pointy-haired bosses and accountants think. They decided it was cheaper to pay compensation than to stop it burning people.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06, @11:12PM