by Four astronauts will orbit the moon in 2024 or so. It’s the first manned moon trip in half a century, and NASA wants to make sure its rocket is ready.
The agency’s Space Initiation Program (SLS) The rocket tasked with making history has already flown once. Submitted successfully Artemis 1a defunct spaceship with three mannequins on board, orbiting Month in 2022. It now has a more delicate task of ensuring that four Artemis 2 the astronauts stay safe on board due to the pressure of the launch.
“The most obvious (difference) is the crew on board. That’s changing the mindset of the entire crew, from the safety area and our work areas,” Cliff Lanham, senior manager of vehicle operations, told Space.com. Lanham is responsible for the operational activities required to obtain Orion spacecraft and SLS is good.
Artemis 2 is set to send four astronauts to the moon: NASA manager Reid Wisemana NASA pilot Victor Glover (the first person is allowed to go The world orbit), a NASA mission specialist Christina Koch (the first woman to do so) and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen (first non-American).
Related: Fourth of the month! NASA is calling the Artemis 2 astronaut crew for the first lunar mission since Apollo
To prepare the rocket, additional testing is underway with new systems for the SLS and its mobile launcher, including an emergency exit system for the crew if necessary. The crew is also heavily involved, Lahnam emphasized, including a planned test in space with a quartet of astronauts in their space suits.
The team will not start from scratch in terms of their preparation, assistant director Jeremy Graeber said in the same interview, because they are building on months of testing and years of development that took place before the launch of Artemis 1. about the moon in 2022.
The “groundwork” set by Artemis 1 will, NASA says, set the stage for future missions. That’s a big hope for mission planners, because Artemis 1 took extra months to land following the events of a simulated launch with fuel on board, known as a “wet dress practice.”
Related: NASA announces 1-month Artemis rocket test, begins preparation for launch
“We’ve worked through a lot of those challenges in terms of programming, from a training perspective. And now we’re adding to that infrastructure and adding content related to the workforce,” Graeber said of Artemis 2’s differences from Artemis 1.
The interview took place shortly after Artemis 2’s mobile launcher was released from the pad in late August to conduct testing over the next six months. Sometime in September or so, for example, the crew will simulate launch day alongside ground crews: They’ll wake up at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, get dressed and ride up to the tower. While there’s no rocket waiting for them when they step up in the elevator, Graeber said the practice will be key to fixing any launch day problems next year.
There are also two planned escape routes and crews: One during the day and one at night, each scheduled to happen by the end of the year. While wearing space suits, the astronauts will all leave the tower in a basket down a zipline. They will glide to safety on a nearby platform, where a waiting vehicle will take them back to the safety of the NASA facility.
In early 2024, the launcher will return to the main NASA Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for a major milestone: packing and assembling the Space Launch System rocket for tests in the building. Next comes preparation for the tank test, when the launcher and rocket together head out to the pad in the fall of 2024. After that, the stack will return to the VAB to complete preparations on the Orion spacecraft before heading out for launch. big day pad in late 2024.
Preparations for Artemis 2 will be careful during each step, Graeber emphasized; in other words, worker safety will always come before any predetermined start schedule.
Related: How the Artemis 2 astronauts are training for their mission to the moon in 2024
“We’re going to do about the same number of countdown simulations leading up to Artemis 2, because now we have that extra responsibility for our flight crew. And that’s our No. 1 priority for everything related to Artemis 2: The safety of our air crew and crew. those of us on earth. That will be the focus of everything we do.”
Regular practice is part of this process, says Jesse Berdis, deputy project manager for Mobile Launcher 1 (the launcher used for Artemis 2). He likened it to intense preparation for a sports championship. “It’s muscle memory, making sure we know what we’re doing and we’ve done Super Bowl football training before,” he said.
Some of the key changes to look out for in Artemis 2 include:
Fueling tweaks. Attempts to practice wet blankets before Artemis 2 included unexpected leaks, a short grass fire and a tornado, all of which “gave us the opportunity to learn a lot,” Graeber said. The team now has data to adjust pressures, temperatures and fuel flow rates to avoid leaks, he said. SLS designers also look at the “interfaces”, or places where the fuel lines enter the tanks, to do their best to avoid leaks. A tank test will help ensure that this connection is sound before launch.
Minor design changes to the mobile launcher. Unless the launcher loses the elevator doors (seen in an excellent video) during the launch of Artemis 1, there was not the slightest thing wrong; performed 99 percent perfectly according to NASA standards. NASA and its contractors are strengthening any damaged areas on Artemis 1, such as the tubing or blast shoes around the flare hole. The fire deflector will see a design change on the main plates. That said, experts tell Berdis that the pressure to launch can cause issues in an unexpected area; “It’s just part of the location business.”
Improvement “birds of rain.” NASA lowered Artemis 1’s lift capacity with five large water jets, known as “rain birds.” Engineers are now using that data to distribute water through the system more evenly ahead of Artemis 2.
“We made a lot of changes to the rain heads to direct the water to certain areas,” Berdis said. “When they’re moving, they have a working position on every deck to make sure they protect the mobile launcher from the rocket blast.”
Small but important changes to the campaign include removing the electromagnetic interference test from SLS (as Artemis 2 uses the same stack as Artemis 1); adding testing to employee communication systems; and adding new payloads to Orion missions.
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