SLS Has Yet Another New Launch Date
Jurczyk: Artemis I to Launch in Mid-Late 2021, HLS Contracts Within Weeks, Space Policy Online
“NASA Associate Administrator Steve Jurczyk said on Friday that the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft, Artemis I, will take place in mid-late 2021. He also said NASA will award contracts “within weeks” for the Human Landing System (HLS) as NASA strives to meet the Trump Administration’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2024 — the Artemis program. Embracing Artemis is the first step towards a trillion dollar cislunar space economy according to space industry executive Tory Bruno who spoke at the same conference in Laurel, MD. He urged everyone to stop “squabbling” and support the program.”
GAO Anticipates First SLS Launch Date In 2021, earlier post
“In November 2018, within one year of announcing an up to 19-month delay for the three programs – the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems – NASA senior leaders acknowledged the revised date of June 2020 is unlikely. Any issues uncovered during planned integration and testing may push the launch date as late as June 2021”.
NASA Flips A Coin Again To Pick A New SLS Launch Date, earlier post
“NASA says “December 2019” because it sounds better than some date in “2020” – even if the launch date was 1 January 2020. Its like saying that something costs $19.99 instead of $20.00. It sounds better. Truth be known they have no idea – as OIG and GAO have been saying again and again every year.”
More Bad SLS Orion News From GAO, earlier post
“Three of the largest projects in this critical stage of development– Exploration Ground Systems, Orion, and the Space Launch System– continue to face cost, schedule, and technical risks. In April 2017, we found that the first integrated test flight of these systems, known as Exploration Mission-1, will likely be delayed beyond November 2018.”
NASA Has Three Different Launch Dates for Humans on SLS, earlier post
“So … NASA originally said that it needs SLS for the whole #JourneyToMars thing – just like Ares V. Then reality sets in (as it always does) and NASA’s response is to keep two sets of books – the internal set says that it will launch humans on SLS in 2021 while the public one aims for 2023. Now there’s a third set of books is being kept wherein a 2024-2025 launch date is being worked.”
“mid-late 2021”
Do I hear bids for 2022? 2023?…
cancelled even?
Oh, it’s too far along not to fly at least once. But if SpaceX Starship reaches orbit first then it might be a one-shot. One more schedule slip and that could happen.
I’m betting that there will be a production run of 6-10 units just to spare Boeing and NG-ATK’s blushes. Of these, a maximum of six will fly (probably only two will crews – a test flight and the EM-2 EML2 halo mission), one will end up at the Rocket Park at KSC and the others will be quietly scrapped. Shades of Saturn-V but far less useful outcome.
No, they will need to spread the Shelby Launch System gate guards around like the pork, one each at Kennedy, Marshall, and Johnson.
Wonder how the software issues are going? Oh it’s Boeing. Guess there aren’t any ?
Cheers
Neil
I’m fairly sure one of the NASA centers is handling the software. Some of it’s probably contracted out, but I don’t think it directly managed by Boeing.
“…[not] directly managed by Boeing” would that include the 737Max and Starliner software?
No, those would be cases of not _correctly_ managed by Boeing.
I believe it’s MSFC.
Boeing has *some* role in the core stage flight software, but primarily, so far, it’s MSFC.
AIUI the software program for the SLS is having staffing issues. People who understand the legacy software suite that NASA cobble together for the SLS from previous projects are not that many and long in the tooth.
Attracting good, young, flight software engineers is a chronic problem. Software development is a where people can make a whole lot more outside the science/NASA/aerospace world. Quite a bit of that legacy software is in obscure languages, and sometimes there is a good reason for that. Flight software, for the most part, is real-time software interfacing directly with hardware. That means things like object oriented languages are not necessarily a good idea and GUI interfaces are largely irrelevant. All that limits the number of people willing and qualified to apply.
NASA does the software for SLS…not Boeing. At least that’s what I read somewhere.
It will make a great guard at Marshall if a Democrat is elected and decides that focusing NASA on fighting Climate Change is a better way to spend that $3 billion a year than returning to the Moon.
Hopefully it ends up in a better structure than the Saturn V at JSC.
I am sure they will get federal money to build one for it. It could be named the Shelby Launch System Pavilion in honor of its sponsor.
I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but… In 2012, NASA’s Multimission Archive for Space Telescopes, where they archive all the data from orbital telescopes like Hubble and Kepler, was renamed the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.
In the old days the scientists did name observatories and geographic features after those who provided the money. Indeed I am sure you recall the original name of the Galileo moons of Jupiter. This is just continuing that time honored tradition.
Sure. Other examples are the Royal Society and Admiralty Ranges in Antarctica (individual mountains named after the members of those organizations who approved funding for expeditions.) But it’s sometimes backfired. British explorers in Africa drew some criticism for naming the east African lakes after members of the royal family (Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, Lake Edward, etc.) The explorers didn’t actually have royal patronage, they were just marketing their discoveries and maybe fishing for future funding.
I wasn’t actually objecting to naming things after people who funded the work. But both SLS and MAST (well, NASA spending in Maryland and Alabama) are pretty blatant examples sending money to a certain Senator’s district. Mt. Lister bothers me less, since Dr. Joseph Lister could make a much better claim to funding work because it was valuable to both science and his nation. Yea, I’ve heard he did have some biases about who should get the money, but not as blatant. Along those lines, I wouldn’t object too strongly to a “Culberson Europa Clipper.” Very little of the funding he provided went to his own district. (Although I do have an objection to naming things after living people.)
Mikulski didn’t provide the money US taxpayers did. I think that if a Medal of Honor winner was born or lived within 25 miles of the facility it should be named for them.
At least the 3 billion spent on climate would return some science ..
I’m reasonably certain SLS is already returning some science. It’s an interesting experiment in sociology. How badly out of control can a program get before Congress pulls the plug, even if the money is going to the right districts? Sociology is an science, although I admit this particular experiment probably isn’t an efficient one.
Also, economics, political science, management.
Yes, all textbook examples of how converting the elements of a reusable launch system, the Space Shuttle, took far longer and cost far more money than the original.?
What weighs 2 million pounds and never leaves the ground? SLS!
Honestly the software is two years away. More like a launch in late 2022, early 2023.
current boeing SLS joke “like that weld? Its my first!
In their heart of hearts, nearly everyone at NASA knows they’re not working toward a 2024 moon landing.
I have a lot of respect for Tory Bruno, but I find this statement to be baffling. Just what sort of cislunar space economy does he think can be established through the use of a $1.6 billion/launch throwaway rocket? If every trip to the office cost me $1.6 billion, I don’t think I’d be going very often…
Think Bruno is mouthing a line from Boeing. Whom he had to keep happy to get approval to developed the Vulcan ACES launcher. Which is how ULA is going to cislunar space. Since the ACES upper stage is also a space tug that can do orbital refueling.
Although Tory has to be very careful to not mention anything to do with orbital refuelling and in-orbit assembly as that’s bad karma for some strange reason.
I don’t think Tory Bruno’s statement is a support for SLS, my impression is he’s supporting the current Artemis program which included commercial human landers that launches on commercial launch vehicles (some of these could even launch on Vulcan, his company’s rocket). It’s a pushback against House space subcommittee’s insane idea to let NASA own the lander and sole source it to Boeing.
You want at lunar landing in 2024
You’ll settle for a lunar flyby in 2025
You’ll get a rocket lost in space in 2028
I won’t be surprised to hear that the promised Europa probe is being quietly resized for Falcon Heavy or Atlas-V-551.
It’s way too late to resize Europa Clipper. Too late by about eight years. But, fortunately, they’ve thought of this and have a plan.
The SLS launch gets them to Jupiter on a direct trajectory. With some Earth gravity assists, possibly a Venus gravity assist, and possibly a deep space maneuver, Clipper can get to Jupiter on a less direct trajectory and without SLS. I don’t think an Atlas V 551 would do, and I’m not sure if a Delta IV Heavy is available. But a Falcon Heavy would work. There are some disadvantages. The longer cruise phase will add to the costs (no matter what they say about a quiet cruise, I expect operating a flagship mission will cost around $75 million per year, possibly more.) A Venus encounter is a pain in terms of thermal design and operating in cool(er) orientations only. A deep space maneuver might use propellent they’d like to have for the orbital tour at Jupiter. But there is plenty of flexibility and margin there, so I wouldn’t expect a big impact on the prime mission.
In fact, for the last few years, every presidential budget request for NASA has said, “We don’t want to use SLS for Clipper.” And every year, Congress has passed a budget which said, “We don’t care what you want, Clipper will fly on SLS.”
AFAIK the Falcon Heavy launch option with the STAR-48 kickstage for the Europa Clipper only requires one Earth flyby.
Will take a couple more years in transit. But the transit time is a wash, since it is unlikely that there will be a SLS available for the revised 2025 launch date. While the Falcon Heavy should take about 6 months from flight order to have all new hardware at Florida for integration.
Heck Congress might even mandated Europa Clipper use the inaugural SLS Block 1B flight. Which is a terrible idea.
Technically, the Falcon Heavy option isn’t just a Earth flyby. It’s a sizable deep space maneuver around the time of the first perihelion, follow by an Earth flyby. There’s a conservation of energy thing which precludes using an Earth flyby alone. That would probably have some impact on the mission at Jupiter, since they would need to use a few hundred m/s worth of propellent for the DSM. But I expect that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. The design of the tour at Jupiter is flexible, and the spacecraft has propellent margin. I suspect needing a DSM would only impact what they could do in an extended mission. (I also don’t know if a kick stage is required.)
But I don’t think, regardless of what Congress says, anyone would put a flagship mission on the maiden flight of a new launch vehicle. So the first flight of a SLS 1B is really not a good idea. The ESA proved that when they got a “free” launch on Ariane 501 (first flight of the Ariane V.) That delivered a billion dollar mission, Cluster, to the floor of the Atlantic, just off the coast of French Guiana. And, even for minor changes, I’ve been told the Cassini project and the Air Force got into a slow race over a new version of the Titan IV upper stage. They were the first two in line to use it, and they were actually looking for delays they could turn into an excuse to say, “you go first.”
Unless of course Elon gets there first!
Not likely since another Starship blew up a few days ago (not covered here).
Morale is so low. People know that the endgame is not good. No matter how CxP/SLS is repackaged it is going to fail. So many setbacks. So much political pork. So much failure from software at MSFC to improper tooling at Michoud.
Smoke em if you got em.