I'm sure they must be breathing easier in the offices of the SLS program this evening. They conducted an apparently flawless static test firing for the full duration, over 8 minutes.
As you might gather from the lower left corner of that screen capture, I watched coverage on NASA Spaceflight . com, and we already have the update from Artemis program declaring this a successful static firing. This was a complete simulation of the expected flight profile, with engines running at so-called "109%" at liftoff, throttling back during the time when Maximum Dynamic Pressure would occur (Max-Q), and throttling back to full power for the rest of the boost phase. There were tests done to wiggle all four engine bells around and measure the dynamics that induces into the test vehicle. They even tested the automatic engine shutoff in case the engines run too long and start to run rich on the fuel, which is liquid hydrogen. The total test time was 499.6 seconds.
The white cloud in the picture is a mix of cooling water and the water produced while burning the hydrogen/oxygen the engines run on. It rains on the surroundings.
As always, credit where it's due, so congratulations to the SLS team. A successful test was absolutely required and they pulled it off.
As you might gather from the lower left corner of that screen capture, I watched coverage on NASA Spaceflight . com, and we already have the update from Artemis program declaring this a successful static firing. This was a complete simulation of the expected flight profile, with engines running at so-called "109%" at liftoff, throttling back during the time when Maximum Dynamic Pressure would occur (Max-Q), and throttling back to full power for the rest of the boost phase. There were tests done to wiggle all four engine bells around and measure the dynamics that induces into the test vehicle. They even tested the automatic engine shutoff in case the engines run too long and start to run rich on the fuel, which is liquid hydrogen. The total test time was 499.6 seconds.
The white cloud in the picture is a mix of cooling water and the water produced while burning the hydrogen/oxygen the engines run on. It rains on the surroundings.
As always, credit where it's due, so congratulations to the SLS team. A successful test was absolutely required and they pulled it off.
Yes, congratulations. I've been a bit cynical about the SLS program, but this was the sort of test they need to do to develop and integrate their hardware properly.
ReplyDeleteMadRocketSci
Exactly. The program's troubles are well documented, but if they're going to launch American astronauts on extremely public missions, I want them to be competent.
DeleteSLS has been an example of big government, cost-plus contracting at its absolute worst. Its mission wasn't a particular space mission (after Aries program); it was to spread jobs and tax money around. Suddenly they find themselves needing to make hardware work. My ex-US representative and then ex-US Senator, Bill Nelson was a major force in getting the money spread around. Now it looks like Nelson will be nominated to be NASA administrator.
Nelson? The politician who strong-armed NASA into letting him 'be an astronaut' for the publicity?
DeleteAw, man...
Off topic:
ReplyDeleteHere are some scripts that may be of use to those of you with a Linux environment. They're designed to dump slow highly compressed archive.org textbooks (which I find to be very slow to load and cumbersome to page through) to a pile of images. They can then rebind that pile of images into a new pdf that (while less compressed) loads pages much faster and can be flipped through.
https://www.amssolarempire.com/Blog/?p=712
MadRocketSci
That could really come in handy.
DeleteI should make my desk computer (this one) a dual boot system again. Last time was a while back and a bad Ubuntu update bricked it. Totally my fault for not doing a good enough backup before doing the update; familiarity breeds contempt. I've setup different computers with different Linux versions since then, but haven't gone fully dual boot.
I've heard there's an official Microsoft installation of Linux that's supposed to be easy to switch to from Windoze 10, but that's a scary combination of words.
And now even Bloated Legacy Aerospace Companies passes Blue Origin.
ReplyDeleteBezos, dude, yer losing.
Glad to actually see SLS work like it was supposed to.
Congrats to the entire SLS team. Amazing what can be accomplished when the entire program is at stake....
ReplyDeleteEven more pressure when you're trying to catch up with Elon Musk. Perhaps this is the new space race . . .
DeleteI am still upset with the fact that NASA is taking engines that were designed for repeated use and throwing them into the sea after one use. If Elon Musk and SpaceX can figure out how to land boosters for reuse....why can't NASA?
ReplyDeleteAlmost want to call the Fraud, Waste, and Abuse hotline on this one.
The part about tossing the engines that really gets me is that when all the costs are rolled up, those engines cost $146 million each. On the shuttle they were $40 million.
DeleteFalcon 9 and Starship are designed from the start to land and be reused. I don't think SLS could change. Remember, back when SLS started they said landing couldn't be done.
Oh, and the equivalent SpaceX Raptor engines are under $1 million each.
Delete