Free Republic

A new report accuses the space agency of a lack of transparency regarding the cost of its SLS program.NASA has come under heat for the increasing cost of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which space agency officials have finally admitted to being unsustainable and unaffordable, a new report revealed. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Thursday that heavily criticized NASA for its lack of transparency regarding the true cost of the SLS program, which has already gone $6 billion over budget. The SLS rocket launched on November 16, 2022 for the Artemis 1 mission, sending an...

Mission UpdatesFeed Upper Stage Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen in Fast Fill Teams are in fast fill operations for the interim cryogenic propulsion stage’s (ICPS) liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. The ICPS is the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket responsible for giving the Orion spacecraft the big push it needs in space to head toward the Moon. Teams continue to work toward a … 44 minutes ago

On Monday, NASA failed in its first attempt to launch the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, with engineers struggling to resolve an engine cooling issue. It’s a wholly unsurprising result, given that NASA was unable to complete a single wet dress rehearsal, of which four were attempted earlier in the year. The space agency appears to be winging it, with the botched launch attempt effectively serving as the fifth wet dress rehearsal, in what is a troubling sign. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) was supposed to take flight on Monday morning, but instead we’re left wondering about the state of the...

This week Firefly Aerospace signed a deal with Northrop Grumman to replace the first stage of the Antares rocket with the first stage of Firefly Beta, this will eliminate the dependence on Russian engines and bring the manufacturing of the major structural parts into the US.Firefly Will Replace Russian Engines On Antares Rocket With Beta Booster | August 11, 2022 | Scott Manley

Live event coverage will air on Space.com courtesy of NASA Television, the NASA mobile app(opens in new tab), and the agency's official website(opens in new tab), with prelaunch activities on Monday, Aug. 22. For anxious toe-tappers, the launch countdown(opens in new tab)starts Saturday, Aug. 27, at 10:23 a.m. ET. Sure, it might not provide the same epic experience that the Earth-shuddering blastoff will offer, but it's the next best thing and you don’t have to worry about the heat, parking hassles, or huge crowds. The stages of the Artemis 1 mission to the moon. (Image credit: NASA) The Artemis 1...

Before the SLS program was officially started, the five-segment SRB concept was proven out with three development motor (DM) firings in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Those previous firings flight-qualified the five-segment SRB. Now, the Flight Support Booster (FDB) tests examine overall process quality, changes, and modifications... FSB-2 will test a newly qualified motor ignition system along with qualifying a new ablative nozzle lining. A new thrust vector control (TVC) system will also be tested, as part of early testing related to the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) boosters...planned to fly from Artemis IX onwards. There are enough Shuttle-era SRB...

Boeing employees mocked federal rules, talked about deceiving regulators and joked about potential flaws in the 737 Max as it was being developed, according to over a hundred pages of internal messages delivered Thursday to congressional investigators. “I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in messages from 2018, apparently in reference to interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration. The most damaging messages included conversations among Boeing pilots and other employees about software issues and other problems with flight simulators for the Max, a plane later involved in...

The third attempt at a final prelaunch test for NASA's Artemis I mega moon rocket began Thursday morning, but the trial hit some snags and ended prematurely at 5:10 p.m. ET. The agency will host a news conference on Friday to share updates and next steps for the test. The mission team had been attempting to fuel the 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Artemis I rocket stack, including NASA's Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but encountered a number of delays.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been preparing the giant Space Launch System (SLS) for its maiden flight, set for March. Last month, it identified a glitch with an onboard engine controller. But the component has now been replaced and all four engine controllers performed well in tests last week. They act as the "brains" for each of the powerful RS-25 engines, which help propel the SLS into orbit, communicating with the rocket to provide precision control of the engine and diagnose any problems. When the Orion spacecraft is stacked on top, the full system stands 98m (322ft) high...

In a statement late Dec. 17, NASA announced that SLS engineers decided they needed to replace the controller for engine four in the core stage of the SLS. One of two redundant channels in the controller failed to power up consistently during tests of the integrated vehicle at the Kennedy Space Center. That controller operated as expected during the core stage’s Green Run test campaign at the Stennis Space Center that concluded with a full-duration static-fire test in March. An initial investigation failed to identify the root cause of the problem. NASA did not give a schedule for the work...

How does Blue Orgin continue to get government contracts while suing the government and publicly criticizing Artemis?ANGRY UPDATE!! Why is Blue Origin still getting government contracts? What about Artemis? | September 27, 2021 | The Angry Astronaut

After analyzing data from the test, NASA has determined that the problem was not with the engines or other hardware, which remain "in excellent condition," agency officials wrote in an update today (Jan. 19). Rather, the shutdown "was triggered by test parameters that were intentionally conservative to ensure the safety of the core stage during the test." Those parameters concerned engine hydraulics — specifically, the system designed to gimbal, or pivot, each engine during flight. On Saturday, the preset parameters for Engine 2's system were exceeded, and the core stage's flight computers ended the test automatically, NASA officials wrote in...

A critical test-firing of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket in Mississippi ended just 67 seconds after it began Saturday, well short of a planned eight-minute burn that was supposed to clear the way for the space agency to finally ship the rocket’s core stage to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations. The SLS core stage, built by Boeing, lit its four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines for the first time at 5:27 p.m. EST (4:27 p.m. CST; 2227 GMT) Saturday for a burn that was expected to last more than eight minutes, the culmination of a year-long...

It will be the first firing of the Space Launch System (SLS), the long-awaited (and delayed) rocket ship that NASA plans to use for non-commercial human space flight. It's the centerpiece of NASA's Artemis program, a crewed mission to land, in language NASA frequently uses, "the first woman and next man" on the moon. However, during this first ignition, only the liquid fuel engines at the core of the rocket will be tested When complete, if everything goes right, the SLS will have the capacity to carry more than 27 tons (24,000 kilograms) to the moon — much more than...

The steel cylinder, which will help form one of the two, five-segment motors to be mounted to the Artemis 1 SLS core stage, was among the hardware that was delivered by train to NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Friday (June 12). The segments' cross-country journey began seven days earlier at Northrop Grumman's facility in Promontory, Utah, where the hardware had been serviced and loaded with the solid propellant that will provide more than 75% of the initial thrust for the planned 2021 uncrewed launch. The segments' arrival on the Florida East Coast railroad marked the first delivery of the booster...

The Mobile Launcher is a moving platform that will transfer the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. The $1 billion tower is one of the tallest structures in the Cape Canaveral area, and NASA originally built it for the Ares 1 rocket, a single-booster launcher that was cancelled in 2010 before it ever flew on an orbital mission. The rollout of the Mobile Launcher to pad 39B this week caps nine months of electrical and mechanical testing inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. After checking the platform and tower’s compatibility with the VAB,...

After a revised budget proposal from the Whitehouse added another $1.6billion mostly to pay to stop more SLS delays NASA announced that their plan to return to the Moon in 5 years would be named 'Artemis'. Which is of course the best name for any lunar program, so good in fact that NASA aren't the first people to use the name of this goddess for a space program. So let's have a quick tour of other projects with the same name. Realistically, the budget may not happen, for obvious political reasons, but I hope the name stays.

Lockheed Martin is unveiling new designs for a human lunar lander concept that can take people to and from the lunar surface. And the company says it can be ready within the next five years.... The vehicle consists of two elements: a lander portion that can travel down to the ground, and an ascent vehicle that can lift astronauts off the Moon’s surface. The lander is meant to travel to and from a new space station that NASA wants to build around the Moon called the Gateway. If all of these elements are created, astronauts would travel to the Gateway...

Now, government officials are dialing up the pressure on Boeing to speed up development of the long-overdue rocket, called Space Launch System or SLS. The space agency contracted Boeing in 2012 to build SLS's core components. Bridenstine's remarks came after US Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday at a National Space Council meeting in Alabama that news of more hangups with the SLS program were a "great disappointment," and the current timeline is "just not good enough." Boeing began building SLS's core stage, the backbone of the rocket, about seven years ago. Officials said at the time that SLS would...

NASA has accepted delivery of a key European part needed to power the world’s next-generation moonship. U.S. and European leaders gathered at Kennedy Space Center on Friday to mark the occasion. The newly arrived powerhouse, or service module, will propel NASA’s Orion capsule to the moon during a test flight without passengers planned for 2020. A mega rocket under development by NASA, known as SLS for Space Launch System, will launch the combo. […] Orion and the attached service module are meant to fly near the moon, but not land. Future missions will carry astronauts, with the goal of building...