Space Launch System - Orion

[hidetheelephants]

Flooble said:

Remind me who their new administrator is, and who was behind SLS?

Oh, looky! An astronaut and an ex-senator astronaut at that! How imaginative! He won't be entirely trapped by orthodoxy at all.

[Eric Mc]

Yes - they should have appointed an ex-circus clown as they know all about what is involved in space flight and engineering.

[Flooble]

Okay, for clarity, what I was driving at is that the new NASA Administrator, Nelson, is the same guy who "designed" SLS via the laws he wrote from the Capital building.

https://www.science.org/content/article/former-sen...

Hence my comment; it's hardly surprising that he wants to keep his pet project alive.

Knowledge or lack of isn't the issue, simply that he is the father of SLS so is about as impartial as NASA appointing Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Tory Bruno as the NASA administrator.

[Eric Mc]

Who would you have appointed?

I would have preferred Jim Bridenstein to stay on and Biden would have been happy to do so. Unfortunately, he chose to resign.

[Flooble]

Kathy Leudars would have been my pick, but I am sitting at a desk 1000s of miles from the action so it's not like I really have a clue.

[Eric Mc]

Whoever the NASA Administrator is, they would be expected to support whatever policy has been decided for them. I don't think the fact that it's currently Nelson matters one jot. Bidenstein was full square behind SLS too.

[Flooble]

There's degrees of support though. Bridenstine supported SLS to the extent he had to, but you can bet (as far as any of us can tell from where we are sitting) that he would have been ensuring those ordering him around were aware of the effect on his budget and made them use up political capital to obtain his support ("I'll say nice things about SLS, provided I'm allowed to have commercial crew").

I would note that there was a little flurry of decisions before Nelson sat down in the chair - Europa Clipper went to Falcon Heavy and the Lunar lander went to SpaceX.

Clearly the reach of the Senators is not complete.

Had Nelson been at the helm, I cannot help but suspect we would have seen Europa Clipper being reworked to cope with SLS vibrations (and wait patiently for a slot) while the lunar lander would have gone to "National team".

Just suppose the Senate decided that SLS was a total waste of time and money and decided to do another review similar to the Augustine Committee. Would Nelson roll over and say "okay then" or would he fight to keep it?

Being under the thumb of those above you doesn't prevent you having your own opinions, which will feed into decision making above and below.

[Eric Mc]

All speculation. NASA want's SLS to work and Nelson's job is to make that happen - as it would be any NASA administrator. NASA administrator's do not cancel programmes, politicians do.

[Beati Dogu]

360 degree camera of the Orion nose section bring mated to the SLS rocket:

https://youtu.be/JcGP7F_es-E

Click and drag to move the view around.

[MartG]

First launch slips again to no earlier than March

https://www.space.com/artemis-1-launch-march-april...

[Beati Dogu]

It won't be the last delay I expect. I really want to see this thing fly though.

[Flooble]

They haven't had anywhere near as many unexpected issues as I expected during the stacking and initial tests.

Last year I'd have happily forecast that they'd have to destack it at least once for something they found "in the data".

[MartG]

Work underway on the next three SLS vehicles

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/nasa-...

[Beati Dogu]

They plan to roll SLS out to the pad in mid-February for testing with the ground support equipment. Actual launch won't be until March / April time.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/news/artemis/

[MartG]

Surprise surprise...

https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1-sls-moon-rock...

Another delay

[Beati Dogu]

NASA is targeting no earlier than 6th June for SLS' first launch - Artemis I.

[MartG]

Beati Dogu said:

NASA is targeting no earlier than 6th June for SLS' first launch - Artemis I.

Which year ?

[Beati Dogu]

Hah, yeah. I did think about putting that in.

[Russ35]

Rollout to 39B starts at 4pm (maybe 5pm) EDT today for its wet dress rehearsal test targeted to begin on April 1.

[Beati Dogu]

The VAB doors are fully open now. It's been a long long time since they needed to do that.



They could leave the top 4 doors closed for a Shuttle stack.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Thursday 17th March 16:59