NASA officials said they are working on understanding and correcting the engine bleed failure that delayed the first test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Monday and are pushing to retry the launch to the moon on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference hours after officials scrubbed the launch, NASA executives said Friday is still in play but stressed that the second launch attempt depends on a number of variables, including how quickly they can assess and correct what went wrong during Monday’s test.
Mike Sarafin, the mission manager for Artemis, said scrubs are common and part of the process in testing new technology, especially considering the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built.
He promised Monday’s failure at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center would not deter NASA from getting the SLS and the Orion exploration spacecraft into space.
“We all want to see that next milestone, that next step, and seeing smoke and fire is something everybody enjoys,” he said. “This is an incredibly hard business, we’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done in over fifty years.
“We’re doing it with new technology, we’re doing it with new operators and new teams, new command control and new software,” Sarafin continued. “We’re learning all along the way.”
Upon a successful launch, the SLS rocket launch will carry the unmanned Orion spacecraft 40,000 miles past the moon, orbiting the satellite before it returns to Earth.
The Artemis I launch is the first in a series of tests set to end with astronauts landing on the moon in 2025 or 2026, returning Americans back to the Earth’s natural satellite for the first time since 1972.
The highly anticipated launch was scrubbed around 8:30 a.m. on Monday after facing a string of hurdles, including lightning strikes at the launch pad, a hydrogen leak and uncertain weather within the two-hour launch window.
Ultimately, the launch team called it off because the rocket’s third engine did not bleed properly, meaning it failed to set to the correct temperature. Launch controllers condition engines by increasing pressure on stage tanks in order to bleed some cryogenic propellant and get them to a proper temperature range for startup.
The Artemis team is taking a break for the day after a long night working with the SLS and Orion, before reconvening tomorrow to discuss what happened and how the team can resolve it.
Friday is the next available window because the rocket needs four days to reset, but engineers can only launch again if they know how to fix the issue with the third engine by then.
The SLS rocket is in stable condition and is not leaving the launch pad, Sarafin said. He explained that there is no indication they will have to pull the rocket from the pad, which would mean further delays that could stretch into a weeks-long or longer pause for Artemis I.
Jim Free, the associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA, said that although engine No. 3 was the main culprit, the other three engines were also not at the temperature the launch team wanted them at.
“The team needs to go off and look at the data and understand how this is different from what we did” in prior tests, Free explained. “And then figure out a path forward, which is ultimately where we want to go.”
Monday’s launch promised to be a huge event, with celebrity guests and Vice President Harris attending a takeoff bash.
But NASA officials said that scrubs are not uncommon and that launch visitors should book a week’s stay if they want to see a rocket blastoff.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the press conference Monday the SLS is a “brand new rocket” and that the space agency would fly it when it was ready, adding that safety is the most important.
“When you’re dealing in a high risk business — and spaceflight is risky — that’s what you do,” he said of the scrub. “You buy down that risk. You make it as safe as possible. And of course that is the whole reason for this test flight — to stress it and to test it, to make sure it’s as safe as possible.”