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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 18 2021, @04:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-don't-know-what-we-don't-know dept.

After a decade, NASA's big rocket fails its first real test:

For a few moments, it seemed like the Space Launch System saga might have a happy ending. Beneath brilliant blue skies late on Saturday afternoon, NASA's huge rocket roared to life for the very first time. As its four engines lit, and thrummed, thunder rumbled across these Mississippi lowlands. A giant, beautiful plume of white exhaust billowed away from the test stand.

It was all pretty damn glorious until it stopped suddenly.

About 50 seconds into what was supposed to be an 8-minute test firing, the flight control center called out, "We did get an MCF on Engine 4." This means there was a "major component failure" with the fourth engine on the vehicle. After a total of about 67 seconds, the hot fire test ended.

During a post-flight news conference, held outside near the test stand, officials offered few details about what had gone wrong. "We don't know what we don't know," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "It's not everything we hoped it would be."

He and NASA's program manager for the SLS rocket, John Honeycutt, sought to put a positive spin on the day. They explained that this is why spaceflight hardware is tested. They expressed confidence that this was still the rocket that would launch the Orion spacecraft around the Moon.

And yet it is difficult to say what happened Saturday is anything but a bitter disappointment. This rocket core stage was moved to Stennis from its factory in nearby Louisiana more than one calendar year ago, with months of preparations for this critical test firing.

Honeycutt said before the test, and then again afterward, that NASA had been hoping to get 250 seconds worth of data, if not fire the rocket for the entire duration of its nominal ascent to space. Instead it got a quarter of that.


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 18 2021, @06:45PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 18 2021, @06:45PM (#1102079)

    I'd extend that remark with a lot depends on the location of the failure.

    If the failure mode was loss of fuel pressure on the input of the fuel pump causing a shutdown that's all on the test stand assuming they didn't use the onboard tanks and were using ground based tanks. If the ground based tanks failed that is probably not a long term program stopper.

    Historically there have been weird problems with running "free space" engines close to the ground WRT 140 dB sound waves bouncing off the ground and re-impacting the engine, also strange thermal effects from "rolling clouds of hot exhaust". Those problems should be well studied and merely historical, but thinking as positively as possible the end result is the engines may never be rated to operate more than a minute within 20 feet of the ground which would not be a major program problem.

    Historically there have been interesting problems with chunks of ice breaking off and impacting things.

    On the other hand if a pump blew apart then they got a major engine related problem.

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