SLS Wet Dress Completed – Sort Of
Keith’s note: With the exception of an unresolved Hydrogen leak NASA told computers to ignore, it seems that the countdown to T-29 sec otherwise went as planned. The original plan was to bring it down to T-9.3 sec but was halted when a flag was encountered – so the test was not 100% completed. But NASA will try and spin it as if it was.
So apparently the only way for @NASAGroundSys to “complete” the Wet Dress test today is to cheat (just a little) and monkey with software – like Captain Kirk did on the Kobayashi Maru test in #StarTrek since @NASA keeps hitting those pesky no win scenarios. Just sayin’ https://t.co/sQSifQzqPs
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 20, 2022
Artemis – the sustainable, permanent presence on the moon program.
Neither affordable nor sustainable.
The mistake people make is thinking that, when using the words “affordable” and “sustainable”, NASA spokespersons are referring to something that happens in space. (Heh, so naive.) What they are *actually* referring to, is keeping the contracts, jobs, and votes flowing. All the biggies involved can certainly afford to do that, and the effort is most certainly sustainable. Forever.
Which handily explains the near-total absence of Starship from NASA presentations and remarks on Artemis. Even though it is the critical, absolutely essential piece in NASA’s plan to put humans on the Moon (which some people might mistakenly and laughably believe is the whole point of Artemis), it is actually a major problem and embarrassment for NASA. Kathy Lueders was demoted, or kicked upstairs, or kicked sideways really, for making the unforgivable mistake of choosing the thing over the far less productive but far more lucrative (for everyone but the taxpayers) “National Team.” (Seriously, did no one have “the talk” with Kathy? DID WE MISS A STEP HERE, GUYS?) If the National Team had won, the various ungainly and inefficient bits that comprise their lander concept would be plastered over every PPT slide NASA publishes, at 2x scale. Instead, we get presentations where every single contractor’s little chunk of Gateway hardware is faithfully represented in loving detail… except the one machine that actually lands people on the Moon.
If you want to understand the amazing anti-logic of Artemis, you must embrace the idea that “affordable” and “sustainable” do not mean what you think they mean.
So which happens first?
-SLS is cancelled and SpaceX lands humans on the moon without the “help” of SLS?
-Chinese taikonauts land on the moon while SLS discrepancies and delays are being “fully addressed?”
-SpaceX Starship lands on Mars after Elon gives up on the moon and waiting for Boeing and SLS to get their lunar program working?
None of the above
IIRC NASA is only currently allowed to go beyond low Earth orbit in the Orion capsule.
Someone paying SpaceX for a Lunar excursion. Especially if the LSS (Lunar Starship or Moonship) lander is in service and done an unmanned test landing on the Moon. Maybe even the same eccentric Japanese Billionaire underwriting the #dearMoon tourist flyby of the Moon.
Such tourists to the Moon can arranged for a different travel itinerary.
That terminal count had my heart rate elevated and adrenalin going. It’s getting real. Nothing quite like a countdown of a very large rocket designed to carry humans.
Sure NASA will have a positive take on it… as does SpaceX after their tests.
Regarding the hydrogen leak, There was a hydrogen leak in the later stages of the Apollo 11 countdown. As a child seeing some guy working in the tower trying to stem a hydrogen leak seemed incredibly dangerous. I was reminded of it watching the Apollo 11 documentary from a few years ago. I believe they ended up bypassing the leaky valve and proceeding with the count.
I’m not sure if this is just a “positive take” on it or a more serious problem. You aren’t supposed to change the success criteria for a test after you see the results. That’s about engineering and the test process, not about media relations and spin. If the test plan required everything to work and it didn’t, then SLS did not pass the test and NASA is either doing something dangerous or stupid by pretending that it did. Of course, if that’s what the test plan said, then they did something stupid by writing it that way. There are always going to be minor anomalies. The test plan should account for that by saying so and (ideally) listing off examples of minor anomalies which are considered acceptable and not critical to a successful test. What’s lacking here is a clear statement that the hydrogen leak and only going down to -29 seconds (rather than the planned -9.3 seconds) constitute minor and acceptable anomalies as defined by the criteria in the test plan. If that’s the case, I don’t have a problem. If it isn’t true, then they’re basically cheating and potentially cheating in a dangerous way.
Actions speak louder than words, so as long as they keep coming back and trying again I’m willing to chalk it up to utterly horrible and incompetent PR, but the lack of transparency is worrisome. If they’re going to these lengths to paper over the minor problems, what are they going to do when faced with a major problem?
AIUI, as soon as the SLS internal flight computers took over control they aborted the countdown. Because some prerequisite conditions for launch was not meet involving the plumbing for the Hydrogen propellant.
IMO, NASA should do a 5th WDR test. Which is problematic since the solid boosters have already been waiver passed their stacking limitation period.
A 5th WDR depends on what exactly is left in those last 20 seconds that needs testing and if faults in that area can be fixed on the pad without missing a launch window.
If they have retired enough risk that ‘go’ is now more likely than ‘no-go’ then prepping for launch is the better option since the worst case is rolling back to the VAB to try again, while doing another WDR risks that the next attempt gets scrubbed due to an H2 leak or other transient failure.
We know that a fair bit was covered during the hot fire tests, but we
don’t know what’s missing. Without that information we can’t make an
informed decision, and that, to me, is the biggest problem: The lack of transparency.
I don’t mean this just from a PR perspective, either. A management culture that can’t admit to having problems also tends to ignore the ‘little’ problems until they become big problems. That’s how Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia all happened, and that’s my biggest concern. Artemis I is just a test launch, so it’s no real loss if it blows up, but Artemis II will not only carry a crew but will also use an untested life support system for a lunar flyby.
It appears that NASA is going to roll the dice. Will attempt to launch after rolling back to the VAB to prep for launch. Mostly activating the flight abort ordnance, AIUI. Maybe they will finish the launch countdown without a scrub. More likely a scrub with the SLS program history.
As with many things, it’s a balance of risk. We’ll see how it plays out. I’m not holding my breath.
Yes, we don’t know what their test plan was, so it’s hard to say definitively if those missing 29 seconds represent a test failure. Design requirements come in “shall” and “should” form… it seems likely that test requirements similarly come in two flavors.
From what I’ve heard it seems their primary mistake was not writing into the test plan contingencies for continuing if some component failure occurs that doesn’t affect downstream test objectives. They shouldn’t have had to have meetings to decide whether or not to go on with a well written plan.
I’ve listened to both post test press conferences and they seemed fairly open about discussing what did and didn’t work and what they considered important and not in the test. Unless they publish their test plan, it seems we’ll just have to take their word that test objectives and the equivalent of “shall” requirements were met.
I wonder how many safety waivers SLS will need for Artemis-I?
The only one that matters. “Launch anyway.”
It was pretty frustrating when requests to list the objectives not met yesterday were met today by a bland recitation of objectives achieved – period. No real response to the two times I heard that asked early in the telecon.
I switched off when a third reporter tried to ask once again for a listing of what wasn’t checked off and Charlie Blackwell-Thompson launched into what sounded like a reiteration of the earlier recitations – maybe I was hasty, but I sure would have preferred “We got everything but the last 20 seconds of the terminal count we’d planned, plus a recycle. We’ll look at the data and decide if we need another WDR .” Coupling that with the reminders that the stage HAS gone through hot-fire and the leak may be addressable without a rollback (but that requires analysis) would have saved a lot of hot air…
The refusal to say anything that wasn’t positive spin on what I thought was a pretty damn good day is annoying. They got most of the way there, obvious progress from the previous tries, things sounded smooth, good for the SLS team in the trenches! It’s not their fault their vehicle is a political monstrosity, they are rapidly working down their learning curve, so well done to them. But the attempted obfuscation this morning left a sour taste.
I’m assuming because this and two other SLS builds are moving forwards it’s going to happen. Part of me is disappointed with SLS and part of me is excited! I’m old, but I’m not angry yet, so I’m going to concentrate on excited, and watch the launch like the little boy I was when Apollo went up.