Another SLS Launch Delay (Update with NASA Comment)
Sources report that the EM-1 @NASA_SLS launch is being delayed From Nov 2020 to TDB because EM-1 personnel are being shifted from EM-1 safety/software to EM-2 because EM-2 requires more people to do human rating (more complex than EM-1 which is not human-rated) #Artemis #Moon2024 pic.twitter.com/GwHE9jyqrK
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) January 6, 2020
– SLS Software Problems Continue at MSFC, earlier post
– This Is How NASA Covers Up SLS Software Safety Issues (Update), earlier post
– MSFC To Safety Contractor: Just Ignore Those SLS Software Issues, earlier post
– SLS Flight Software Safety Issues Continue at MSFC, earlier post
– SLS Flight Software Safety Issues at MSFC (Update), earlier post
– Previous SLS postings
Keith’s update: Comment posted by Doug Loverro
“It’s always a pleasure to address NASAWatch followers since you all collectively are some of the most ardent supporters of everything that NASA does. That said, I’m not sure where the Nov 2020 date came from, but it’s certainly not a date that we in HEO have been tracking since I came on board, nor even a while before that (although I know it was a date from long ago).
To set the record straight, the HEO team is just now beginning to run the assessment I promised 35 days ago to allow me to set the first SLS launch date. I expect to be able to do that in time for Congressional Hearings. But that does not mean we are standing still. In fact the Artemis 1 core is currently being “gift wrapped” and headed to the Pegasus Barge for shipment to Stennis on 8 Jan for our long planned Green Run test.
We expect that test to run through this coming fall, not far from that Nov 2020 date. And the really good new is that this ship date is within less than two weeks of the date planned to ship predicted back in March when VPOTUS asked us to land on the moon by 2024;. I can’t promise we’ll always be that good, but credit where credit is due–hats off to the NASA and Boeing team at MAF.”
Estimated launch now 2021 or 2022?
Why isn’t EM-1 human rated?
I mean don’t you want a chance to test out the systems as if humans where on board?
AIUI there is minimal life support capability abroad the EM-1 Orion since it doesn’t have the full ECLSS suite. It is my understanding that the full up ECLSS will be “Hot” tested with the first crew in the flyby of the Moon with EM-2.
First hot test will be when the crew are on the far side of the Moon. You couldn’t make this up!
That doesn’t sound very wise to me.
That is a little odd, especially since it doesn’t quite match what I’ve heard. There are 13 CubeSats (6Us) on Artemis I as secondary payloads. In multiple conference presentations, by several different people involved, they’ve made it very clear the requirements for flying on an SLS are nothing like flying as a secondary payload on another rocket. They attributed these requirements to human rating. If I had to guess, I’d say human rating for SLS is a work in progress, and Artemis I isn’t all the way there. I think that was true of the Apollo 4 and 5 and the early Saturn flights.
Especially in light of what happened with Starliner.
I guess the bigger surprise would have been “no changes, everything working to schedule, expect first launch Nov ’20”.
Shocking, just shocking! ??
Why not scrap em-2 and just get the uncrewed test flight off asap then focus all the effort to ensure the SLS/Orion are ready to launch January 1st 2024. How embarrassing would it be for the em-3 shipset of SLS or Orion to be the long pole in boots on the Moon given their collective decade plus headstart compared to HLS vendors which hopefully will be announced this month.
Honestly, the current schedule is pretty aggressive. It’s best not to test too many new things at the same time. I think a human landing on the first crew flight of Orion and SLS, and only the second flight overall, would be asking for trouble. Apollo 11 was, after all, the eighth flight for Apollo and Saturn (counting from Apollo 4, the point where the vehicles were in a reasonably Apollo 11-like configuration.)
problem is orion has three different configs over the flights.
uncrewed, sub standard prop valves no eclss
crewed still sub standard prop system but capable enough for a free flight mission, no docking system or nav aids
crewed with upgraded docking/nav aids and prop system capable of rndz and NRHO mnvrs.
so given past performance do you think they can build three different shipsets or maybe jump from uncrewed config to the moon mission config and use all available time so they arent the long pole for Boots on the Moon?
Apollo 8 of course was quite ambitious as they faced similar logistical problems with the test schedule (LM wasn’t ready yet). And maybe a bit of influence from reports of a possible Soviet attempt to fly around the Moon. But overall yes things were fairly incremental in the Apollo program and they performed multiple test flights leading up to the Moon landing.
That in fact is one of the things that has always been perplexing about SLS is the extremely low launch rate. We already know that operationally it is apparently not capable of flying very often, and this is also being evidenced in the test flights. I wonder if it’s a technical limitation or simply a budget limitation, i.e. Apollo had a lot of cash available for multiple test flights and relatively frequent operational flights.
If the reason for this delay was correctly reported, then I’d have to say the budget is part of the problem. If Artemis I is delayed because they are shifting staff to Artemis II, that means they only have one team for those tasks. Apollo would have hired more people and had two teams working in parallel. In fact, they did. Mission control, for example, was staffed up to half a dozen or more teams, so some could be supporting one mission while others were getting ready for the next. If memory serves, Mr. Kranz’ white team only worked on the odd numbered missions.
I feel sorry for the Michaud crew. Apparently they worked through the holidays on Core 1 getting it pushed out the door on January 1st. After this announcement for what, really?
Then again maybe they were aware of the pending delay and still took that sweet, sweet triple time pay. Hell maybe they delayed announcing the delay for that very reason. Cynical, I know.
It’s always a pleasure to address NASAWatch followers since you all collectively are some of the most ardent supporters of everything that NASA does. That said, I’m not sure where the Nov 2020 date came from, but it’s certainly not a date that we in HEO have been tracking since I came on board, nor even a while before that (although I know it was a date from long ago).
To set the record straight, the HEO team is just now beginning to run the assessment I promised 35 days ago to allow me to set the first SLS launch date. I expect to be able to do that in time for Congressional Hearings. But that does not mean we are standing still. In fact the Artemis 1 core is currently being “gift wrapped” and headed to the Pegasus Barge for shipment to Stennis on 8 Jan for our long planned Green Run test.
We expect that test to run through this coming fall, not far from that Nov 2020 date. And the really good new is that this ship date is within less than two weeks of the date planned to ship predicted back in March when VPOTUS asked us to land on the moon by 2024;. I can’t promise we’ll always be that good, but credit where credit is due–hats off to the NASA and Boeing team at MAF.
Response does not address the 1st SLS vehicle not being human rated. Does not address impact of human rating crewed vehicle vs efforts to ready 1st vehicle for flight. Response does not give a baseline launch date. Do they not know what the baseline launch date is? The response -“HEO team is just now beginning to run the assessment I promised 35 days ago to allow me to set the first SLS launch date.” implies the date is TBD (- how long have they been without scheduled a launch date?). Are they just building hardware and software without a series of schedule rally points leading to a launch? When they planned to fly (I hope they had this) Vs. when the can fly should be simple to estimate. Response does not give confidence they have a firm hand on the program.
I can see why a launch date and schedule for Artemis I would be a problem. I assume (and hope) they have a list of things they need to do before launch, and the order they need to be done in. But some of this things have never been done before. That means how long they will take is a guess. I don’t like the way things are slipping later and later, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are very large uncertainties in the exact dates.
What hasn’t been done before that they cannot make a schedule?
By that I mean outside the normal bounds of designing and building a rocket.
The complexity of having the “biggest” (SLS) most powerful (not really) rocket ever built comes with a lot of uncertainty. It is extremely hard for NASA to predict how long an activity will take. For starters, the people doing the predicting have not done the hands on work before. NASA and Boeing are doing these operations with extreme risk aversion, using archaic facilities and mindsets, having to compromise every step of the way… It ain’t pretty and bound to get worse, much worse.
SLS is starting its slow death roll. Hopefully all the congressmen, congresswomen, and senators who are ramrodding this dead horse down the proverbial throat of NASA will lose their seats.
Best real guess if the stars align is Q2 2021.
Dang, I was hoping to see it blow up before the election.
Your comment was probably meant as sarcasm, but there are plenty of folks for whom ‘criticism’ and ‘failure’ are synonymous.
And to them, I have some advice: Knock it the hell off.
Disagreeing with policy is legitimate. But regardless of policy views, we should all want, and support, a successful NASA.
Failing at this insanity would be no blight on NASA. NASA is being forced to do things no rational organization would choose to do. The sooner that SLS is killed, the better; less money wasted and fewer chances for pointless deaths.
What year?
Respectfully – I want to give Mr. Loverro the best possible opportunity to succeed – but why is the statement Keith highlighted sound like just so much bulls*it? And why is it loaded with time-eating weasel words?
I ‘get’ the fact that working in the public sector, compared to private industry, is a different environment. And one thing the public sector loves to do is bray about just how good they are, and how they were able to get from the workforce exactly what the workforce is paid to provide.
As to the 11.20 date, and the 35 day delay in initiating another damn study: I expect Mr. Loverro and anyone else coming to the position to be completely steeped in program history, able to answer any question relating to history. One thing is certain: maybe you don’t know why the date is important, but someone at NASA Watch, or elsewhere, will jump in with an explanation.
Reading the above before posting: I’m surprised at my attitude, as I am a strong supporter of NASA, and particularly of the folks never named but doing yeoman work. I think my take can be summed up: it’s enough already with more delay on another program of questionable import.
I’m just pissed.
“time-eating weasel words” – that’s a great phrase!
Mr Spencer. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to succeed. I don’t want to dwell on all the questions in your comment because I prefer to avoid the “he said, she said” that inevitably follows.
I did want to address one aspect of your question — which is whether or not I was or should have been “steeped” in program history. In a nutshell, I was not nor am I still today. I, much as you, had been an external spectator to the comings and goings of NASA programs because my “beat” was on the National Security side of things (DoD/IC). I certainly knew of issues in civil space but I’m guessing folks here at NASAwatch may have been far better informed than I about those issues.
And that’s precisely why I was asked to take this job. To bring a fresh set of eyes, program management, and leadership experience to work these hard problems. And while history is important and instructive, it can only tell me how we got here, not how to go forward. So I’ll spend less time second guessing past decisions and instead put all my energy into plotting the path forward. I will appreciate your patience as I try to turn this immense ship.
Mr. Loverro:
Thank you for injecting the civility that somehow completely escaped me in my earlier post.
On the new eyes:
Doesn’t this necessarily move the schedule dramatically to the right?
Doesn’t insistence on ‘new eyes’ fundamentally recognize previous errors?
And finally, once the learning period is complete, I am certain we will witness a new direction. Can we also expect a plain-speaking ‘report’ on exactly what has gone wrong?
More particularly, can we expect a statement from you on what will be done, new and/or different, including earlier policies that are informing direction? Like you I don’t care to point fingers. But I do feel identifying errors is essential.
I can’t speak for the ISS program, but having new eyes on something can be extremely valuable. And not even because they see something new. I’ve been stuck on a problem, and asked someone to take a look and see what I’m doing wrong. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to do anything. Simply by having to describe what the problem is, I realize my own mistake. Yes, it does add some time and effort. But if things aren’t going as well as you expect, that can be a good investment. And, from the outside, I’d say SLS isn’t going as well as expected.
Mr Spencer. I promise to be as open as I can as soon as I can. I hope you can appreciate that while my personal style is to be fully transparent, there are rules in the government I must follow.
Those will never cause me to stray from the truth, but may constrain me from sharing fully. Without question, I will inform you all about changes I will make and why. But please consider that this program has a myriad of interested parties from the executive branch, to the Congress, employees, contractors, and our critical international partners. Each deserves the chance to to hear from me directly, and not after they read it in the news.
Thanks so much. My favorite quote here: “please consider that this program has a myriad of interested parties…” . =)
Often, the right answer is not the most technically sound. Cost, schedule and special interests have a vote also. That is why I liked engineering, we provided the best solution, without considering cost or schedule.
Best of luck, Sir.
Mr. Loverro:
Until now, I have been struggling to understand exactly why you are qualified for this critical job, even in light of previous enviable service.
I considered many points, but in the interest of brevity one thread: my thinking has partly reflected on private industry, of course, where specific experience is paramount, and where great efforts are made to mentor new leaders as the older guys retire, or move on. I kept asking myself: Is Mr. Loverro’s experience directly relevant? Your comment that months would be needed to assess the situation (my words, not yours) was disheartening, adding fuel to the argument that this was simply another governmental shuffle.
“this program has a myriad of interested parties”
I’m convinced now that I was looking in the wrong direction. It is leadership that is needed at NASA, and more particularly in HEO.
Leadership in this context requires that you abandon single-issue advocacy in favor of the Big Picture.
Forgive the comparison, enlightening as it was for me: my career requires more than passing knowledge in several related but distinct professional categories. Your new position requires exactly the same: you must exhibit a fine sense of balance without losing eye-contact, continually observing that ball spinning on a far horizon.
That ‘ball’, of course, is our successful domination of space. Exactly how that is achieved is the part where ‘leadership’ becomes important. And that is where any assessment of your future success must start.
I do not envy your search for a way forward that is acceptable to every United State Senator. For a start.
You have captured it perfectly!
I for one am absolutely gobsmacked and grateful that a high-ranking NASA executive has engaged with “the community” and on NASA Watch no less (considering the past, shall I say, “grudging” attitude of NASA PR toward Keith). For that, Thank You, Mr. Loverro.
This indicates that someone in NASA is paying attention to the group of people (from informed enthusiasts to long-time professionals) who are most interested in the future of US human spaceflight, and frustrated by the lack of progress in NASA HSF. That’s amazing.
And since you’re here… perhaps I am preaching to the choir and beating a dead horse, but I urge you to consider carefully the new, innovative commercial players who are focused on providing reusable heavy launch capabilities at a much lower cost than traditional NASA contractors.
Thanks again.
Patrick — Thanks for the vote of confidence. I can assure you I am well familiar with all the new launch capabilities brought to us by the wonderful and unstoppable force known as American Entrepreneurial fervor.
While in DoD I was a prime advocate in working to enhance our cooperation with those companies, both for launch and satellites. I awarded the first two Air Force Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2012 which led to their eventual certification for DoD.
That said, our journey to the moon is not yet possible on any commercial launch vehicle — it’s simple physics — they just can’t get there. That may not be true sometime in the future, but for right now, our national success is linked to the success of SLS.
It worries me that some folks believe this is an “either or” situation. It’s not. We must have SLS and we must make it successful. We must also have a vibrant commercial launch sector and NASA must help empower that as well.
Mr. Loverro,
I’d like to add to add my comment to some of the comments posted here. I think most (or possibly almost all) of the people who comment on NASAwatch are strong supporters of the American space program. And we do really appreciate the fact that you are reading and reply to them. But we are a bunch of people who are a bit inclined to ask for details and, as President Truman said, want people to “show me.” I think your comments were good and informative. Not perfect, but I think expecting perfection is unrealistic. But, given our nature, some critical replies are to be expected. I hope that they will not discourage you from making further comments here.
Thanks Fcrary. As I have told Keith, I won’t always have the time to post on NASA watch, but will definitely try to stay engaged. And I wouldn’t have much of a chance of making it back to the moon by 2024 (1817 days from now) if I discouraged easily!?
The Nov. 2020 1st SLS launch date comes from NASA, the schedule archived on the wayback machine before it was deleted in later versions of this, see >
https://web.archive.org/web…
1/8 edited 2st to 1st, typo.
Hey, at least Mr Loverro responded. How many have done that in the past? I was skeptical of the guy. Now I see he isn’t afraid of you people. Or telling the truth.
well something doesn’t smell right … apparently in May ’19 NASA was saying “Nov ’20”, and now we have no recollection of that plan ? Sure, Mr Loverro wasn’t in place in May ’19, but others “supporting” Mr Loverro were and so the memory should have been sustained.
In September, 2019, the SLS program manager said they were “working aggressively” towards a November, 2020 launch but also said that was not an official launch date.
There’re public dates and internal dates, at least that’s the case for Commercial Crew. The two dates are not always in agreement, a lot of times internal date is already slipped/postponed but public date stays the same.
It’s a big project involving a large number of centers and companies. That means they don’t exactly have internal dates. If they add time to one task and shift others to later dates, the various institutions involved _will_ assume they have the implied, extra time. That makes it hard to advance the schedule if one task takes less than expected.
For a little more perspective. Core 1 assembly just got completed and is being shipped off to Stennis (a 40 mile trip) for the Green Run test.
They are now saying that Green Run test will happen sometime in the Fall.
I saw a presentation on that. The green run test isn’t easy to set up. I don’t know if NASA has ever gotten such a big rocket in place for a full-up test before. Certainly not since the 1970s. From the sound of it, just getting the vehicle off the barge and onto the test stand could take three or four months. Maybe they could do it faster, but it did seem like a difficult job which has to be done carefully. Cutting the time down to a month, maybe. But they aren’t going to put it on a train, run it over to the test stand and put it in place in a few weeks.
I didn’t think it would take a day or two, but six to nine months seems really excessive. They already loaded up and removed from the test stand the Pathfinder test article to try out the loading and unloading procedures and equipment.
“The green run test isn’t easy to set up”
Argh! This ‘test’ is exactly what SX does before every flight: pointy end up, gas in the tank, fire away. NASA will say that it’s different because it’s human rated, but I don’t buy it; every Block 5 is in the queue to reach the magic 7, meaning it’s also human rated testing.
Yes, I know it’s more complicated. The central point remains, though, and it is this: SLS ought to be regularly and deeply compared to SX. Every procedure, every policy, every test, every arena. NASA cannot fall back on ‘space is hard!’ Because we know it’s hard. It’s just that SX figures out much easier ways to proceed.
Simply compare the physical plant to start. Where’s SX’ big tractor to move rockets about? Where’s the humongous support towers?
SX is eating SLS’ lunch while the public stands around, watching them eat the 100th hamburger, asking NASA really pointed, obsequious questions like “Any more tea, with that burger hon?”
Why isn’t there more pushback on this?
To be fair, the first static fire will take much more time than the 50th, since it’s the first time, a lot of issues to solve. I think it took SpaceX 2 to 3 months to fire up the first F9 v1.1 core (from stage on test stand to final successful static fire), so 6 to 9 months is not too out of line.
In addition to experience, the Falcon 9 isn’t nearly as big and was designed for horizontal rather than vertical assembly. In terms of experience, none of the people at Stennis have ever done this before. It’s a huge help to have procedures which have been ironed out and debugged through dozens of repetitions. And there are lots of tricks to getting things right that the people involved learn, but often don’t write down. That’s actually a concern for the low SLS flight rates. People doing something once or more every month get good at doing it efficiently. That doesn’t happen to people doing the job once a year (well, not to nearly as great an extent.)
I think your insistence on comparing the SLS program, a publicly funded human space flight project, with SpaceX’s, a privately owned firm funded by billionaires, is ridiculous. The consequences of failure at any stage for NASA are much greater. They have massive political pressure. SpaceX can make as many mistakes in developing new hardware as they want (within reason). They have no man-rated hardware. They have zero experience in manned space flight much less navigation outside LEO. The Falcon rockets are tiny compared to SLS and comes with less design restrictions. Remember politics? That basically forced NASA’s hand in the design with continuing use of the SSRBs, SSMEs, and overall diameter of the vehicle.
You failed to consider just about any context whatsoever when you ask these silly questions trying to compare NASA SLS to SpaceX Falcon 9 or Heavy.
Ha. when you say “SpaceX have zero experience in manned space flight much less navigation outside LEO.” it fails to recognize how much technology SpaceX has developed, way, way ahead of NASA. My favorite example: Propulsive landing. Created from a blank sheet of paper, learning with short hops…. developing the computer code to control the vehicle, add the SX evolutionary (and revolutionary!) hardware development cycle. Build, test, re-evaluate, fix and test again. Landing boosters on a barge is just one of many instances where NASA is nowhere near in technology. SLS and those fine SSME’s are going to be dumped in the ocean. yes, it is not fair to compare NASA to SpaceX but before SX came about, NASA could always fall back to “space is hard”. Now, SX has shown the world, it is not that hard, if you are smart(er) =)
NASA doesn’t have a driver to develop a landable first stage. Their recent efforts for new launch vehicles (Constellation and SLS) have the mission of lifting as much as possible into LEO, to lunar orbit, or into mars orbit. That mission requires all the impulse possible, which a landable first stage does not provide. They also are forced to use existing resources to move forward to make their proposals more palatable for congress.
Space is still extremely hard. SpaceX is doing great work in a very different arena than NASA. Like I said, they have zero political pressures. They are a privately owned company, so they have the benefit of being able to do whatever they want. NASA had some of that freedom in the 60s and the budget to match. They blew up tons of rockets and learned about spaceflight in small steps. Now things are much more sensitive for them. They’re expected to take just one flight before sending humans on a vehicle.
You do not believe SpaceX has pressure to perform? Do you know they often dismiss the lower performing 10% of their employees? They’re under tremendous (internal) pressure to get their work done, 60 hours a week is normal. Yet, SX people love their work. NASA is indeed, saddled by congress and political pressure, but again, private industry has surpassed the government’s inertia. The new private rockets will use a new fuel, Methane and 21st century technology. SLS, not so much…
Sorry, but “space is hard” is no longer a valid excuse. Because some of the reasons you mentioned and others, SX and Blue Origin are the innovators and will lead NASA to the Moon (and beyond… just to keep the party line going). It will be amusing to see how the next two years go.
I never said SpaceX doesn’t have pressure. I think you have no idea what point I’m trying to make. Private industry is what’s needed for
sustainable LEO missions, but an organization like NASA is pretty much what it takes to really push the boundaries into the unknown (humans on Mars).
By the way, one Saturn V launch would fund 32 SLS launches just to give you an idea of how much better things are today despite glaring cost control issues. We can do better, but we’re already doing better too.
So eight years into the program and $7B+ spent and it will take 35 days to come up with yet another estimate for the next postponed launch?
It took NASA 8 years and two months to go from the first sub orbital launch of a human to landing two men on the moon (May ’61 – July ’69). Quoting Mr. Cowing – ‘just sayin’ ‘