2/18/2023 0 Comments Nasa space shuttle launchIt has taken 18 years to get a new moon rocket built, at a cost so far of $23 billion just from 2012 to 2022 and a per-launch price tag of $4.1 billion, according to a 2021 report by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General. Back to the Moonīut the SLS had a long history and a challenging future even before its recent launch woes. Read more: How Pittsburgh Is Leading the U.S. “The SLS is the start of a generational effort to return us to deep space and keep us there,” says John Honeycutt, NASA’s SLS program manager. Camping out on a celestial body that’s only three days from home is seen as an essential first step to learning how to live off the extraterrestrial land-a critical rehearsal for later journeys to Mars which, at minimum, is an eight-month trip each way. All of that propulsive power is required to launch the larger crew capsule and other payloads required for a return-to-the-moon program that will not only send astronauts moonward to explore the lunar surface for a few days at a time, but will also later be used to launch crews who will set up a permanent presence there. The SLS is a bigger beast, and it needs to be. Over the course of the following five years, nine Saturn 5s launched crews of astronauts to the moon. (3.4 million kg) of thrust, rattling the windows in the TV press booths and causing plaster dust to flutter down from the ceiling of the nearby launch control center. Until now, the Apollo program’s Saturn 5 held the record for the most powerful rocket ever launched. Scrubs and disappointments notwithstanding, there is no overstating the scale and ambition of the SLS. “This is part of our space program: Be ready for the scrubs.” We don’t go until then,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement to the press after the second stand-down. That will push the inaugural launch until sometime in October at the earliest. Engineers are now fixing the fuel leak problem on the launch pad, but will likely have to roll the rocket back to its Vehicle Assembly Building hangar to recharge batteries that have drained during the long wait on the pad, and check for other potential leaks. The second was halted by a liquid hydrogen leak that prevented the rocket from being fueled properly. A lack of proper cooling could have led to the engine bell cracking or the engine itself shutting down. The first was called off after being plagued by a handful of problems-the worst of them a faulty sensor that falsely indicated that one of the main engines had failed to be cooled sufficiently for ignition.
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