As the launch date for NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission continues to be pushed back due to glitches and storms, a deadline for its solid rocket boosters is fast approaching.
The launch of Artemis 1 – which will use a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, aided by two boosters, to send a ship unmanned Orion Capsule to the moon – was again delayed, this time until Wednesday (Nov 16) at the earliest due to the impending arrival of Tropical Storm Nicole on the Space Coast of Florida. Satellite images show Nicole currently looming in the atlantic ocean next to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), generating winds of up to 70 mph (110 kph) as it nears the center’s Launch Pad 39B, where the Artemis 1 stack is located , ready to weather the storm.
Now that the Artemis 1 lunar mission has been delayed again, there are fears that some of its hardware could expire before launch. For example, several key deadlines for the mission’s two solid rocket boosters, built by Northrop Grumman, are approaching. If Artemis 1 hasn’t launched by mid-December, NASA will need to analyze the boosters to see if they’re still launch-worthy past their current expiration dates.
Related: NASA postpones launch of Artemis 1 to the moon to November 16 due to Tropical Storm Nicole
At a Nov. 3 press conference, NASA officials told reporters that several components of the SLS vehicleBoosters are approaching their current expiration date, based on the most recent analysis performed by team members.
Cliff Lanham, senior director of vehicle operations for the ground exploration systems program at KSC, told reporters that a countdown begins as soon as a rocket is stacked. This countdown is currently underway for the Artemis 1 vehicle.
“When you stack your first segment on the rear segment, you start a clock that was originally 12 months,” Lanhan said. “It’s currently analyzed up to 23 months, and that expires. One coin expires on December 9 of this year, and the other is on December 14 of this year.”
Another environmental exposure rating expires on Dec. 15, he added.
If Artemis 1 hasn’t launched by those dates, the mission team will need to perform further analysis to determine if the expiration dates of various rocket components could be extended, said Associate Administrator Jim Free. of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC
“Each of them has a different revisit date – that’s my term – when we have to go back and redo the analysis and look at the assumptions of the analysis. And it’s really more a function of when we feel like those assumptions are no longer good and boosters fall into that category,” Free said at the Nov. 3 press conference. “I think I would be doing our team and you a disservice by saying that we can go on forever, because I don’t think that’s the case. I think we look at the scan each time with a different set of lenses thinking about what else could have changed.”
NASA is currently considering a two-hour launch window for Artemis 1 at 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) on Wednesday, November 16. If successful, the launch will send an unmanned Orion Capsule in lunar orbit and back. The launch will be the first mission of the Artemis program which will eventually see humans return to the moon near the lunar south pole in 2025 or 2026, with the ultimate goal of establishing a permanent base on the Moon.
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