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For today’s test, a key strategy was for ground teams to employ a “kinder, gentler” approach to tanking. Engineers felt that a slower approach would lessen the chance of thermal shock, as components come into contact with ultra-cold propellants at temperatures reaching -423 degrees Fahrenheit (-217 degrees Celsius). It’s possible that thermal shock, or an unintended over-pressurization, resulted in the hydrogen leak on September 3, but the true cause of the faulty 8-inch seal, which exhibited a possible indentation mark less than 0.01 inches in size, is not yet known.
At around 9:45 a.m., ground teams transitioned from slow fill to fast fill. An hour later, the teams reported a hydrogen leak at the quick disconnect between the rocket and the tail service mast umbilical, in what was an ominous sign. Blackwell-Thompson signed off on the ensuing plan to warm the line and reset the connection point, and the teams were back in business about an hour later. Speaking to Blackwell-Thompson after the test, Derrol Nail, launch commentator for NASA, said, “you could kind of feel the room deflate a bit, but as [the ground teams] got past it, you could feel a certain lifting of the room.”
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The tanking moved quickly and smoothly after that, with the completion of the thermal conditioning of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines happening shortly before 1:00 p.m. The teams managed to fully fill the core stage and the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), otherwise known as the upper stage, with propellants. By 3:45 p.m., launch controllers had completed the pre-pressurization test, with de-tanking activities starting shortly thereafter. “All objectives for the Artemis 1 cryogenic demonstration have been met,” tweeted NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems at 4:33 p.m., and the test was declared complete 20 minutes later.
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“I think the test went really well,” Blackwell-Thompson told Nail. “We wanted to learn, we wanted to evaluate the [tail service mast umbilicals] under cryogenic conditions.” She said teams were also working with a new loading operation, the so-called kinder, gentler approach, which Blackwell-Thompson described as being “very purposeful.” Ultimately, “all test objectives were accomplished today,” she said.
NASA will need to review today’s test results and decide how to move forward. Ideally, the engineers will like what they saw, setting the stage for launch in just six days. Assuming the test is as much of a success as it appears to be, NASA could launch SLS as early as September 27, with a 70-minute launch window opening at 11:37 a.m. ET. For that to happen, however, the space agency still needs to receive a waiver from the Space Force’s Eastern Range, which manages launches along the Florida east coast. NASA is currently attempting to launch the Artemis 1 mission, in which the SLS rocket will deliver an uncrewed Orion capsule on journey to the Moon and back.
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A successful launch would be the start of the Artemis era, in which NASA is seeking a sustainable and sustained presence in the lunar environment. Artemis 1 is a demonstration mission that would set the stage for Artemis 2, in which a crewed Orion spacecraft will attempt a similar journey in late 2024.