![]() ![]() If no other problems crop up and the weather cooperates, the countdown should finally make it to zero Saturday, kicking off a ground-shaking spectacle unrivaled since NASA's legendary Saturn 5 moon rockets boosted Apollo astronauts to the moon five decades ago. He said "there's no question we have good flow through that engine." ![]() to infer the rest of the hardware is cold." "What we're trying to do is make sure was have cold liquid (flowing through the engine) for a certain amount of time. "We do not need this sensor to fly," Blevins said. #Nasa space shuttle launch live video software#Blevins said the suspect sensor isn't monitored by flight control software and that it would simply be ignored during Saturday's launch try. Similar procedures were used before a core stage engine test firing last year and there were no problems. Later in the countdown, the hydrogen tank will be pressurized to flight levels for a quick test, forcing more hydrogen through the lines to aid the cooling process. "Since then, we've had time to go back and look at the data and compare many sources of data and do some independent analysis that confirms it's a bad sensor, and we're getting good quality propellant through the engines."Īdding a bit of margin, engineers revised the fueling timeline for the second launch attempt and will start the hydrogen kickstart bleed earlier than originally planned, allowing more time for the propellant to cool the hardware. "We know we had a bad sensor," Honeycutt said. Engineers suspect a faulty temperature sensor because other measurements indicate good cooling 3 failed to get past about minus 380 degrees. In the process, the liquid propellant forces out, or "bleeds" the lines of warmer hydrogen, some of which may have turned into a gas.ĭuring Monday's launch attempt, three of the engines almost reached the minus 420-degree target on the hydrogen side, but engine No. An artist's impression of the unpiloted Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft passing by the moon.Ĭonditioning is done by routing propellant through an engine's low- and high-pressure fuel pumps, a procedure known as a "kickstart bleed" that circulates cold liquid hydrogen through the lines. The thermal conditioning is required to ensure bearings in powerful engine turbopumps remain within tight operating tolerances when they suddenly spin up to pull in ultra-cold propellants and route them to the combustion chamber starting about six seconds before liftoff. 3 that indicated it was not getting cold enough. John Honeycutt and the SLS rocket's chief engineer, John Blevins, said a review of data from multiple sensors confirmed all four of the shuttle-era engines had, in fact, been properly cooled despite a temperature sensor on engine No. #Nasa space shuttle launch live video crack#Sarafin and the rest of NASA's Mission Management Team (MMT) met Thursday to review the engine cooling issue, a leaky vent valve quick-disconnect fitting, work to tighten up a different seal where liquid hydrogen lines feed propellant into the rocket's propulsion system and a crack in the core stage's spray-on insulation. Walter Scriptunas II/CBS News/Spaceflight Now But we're going to show up, and we're going to try, and we're going to give it our best." The Space Launch System moon rocket, awaiting launch on a flight to the moon, atop pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. "There's no guarantee we're going to get off (Saturday). "We've got a whole host of things that could cause us to not get off on any given day," he told reporters at a Thursday evening news conference. Agency managers are hopeful that will clear the way for blastoff Saturday on a long-awaited unpiloted test flight.Īsked about his confidence level going into the next launch attempt, mission manager Mike Sarafin said Thursday the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful booster NASA and its contractors have ever built, has 489 launch commit criteria that have to be met to permit a liftoff. Engineers have revised the fueling timeline for NASA's giant Artemis moon rocket to resolve the engine cooling issue that derailed a launch try Monday. ![]()
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