ANSWER — NASA is scheduled to launch its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the first time in mid-March. The launch is in rehearsal for the mission after May or at least before the end of 2022.
To note, the Atemis 1 mission is a US attempt to land humans back on the moon. Not only that, the mission will explore further for the preparation of future lunar inhabitants. This mission will be the next milestone for Artemis, namely to Mars.
NASA officials said workers had completed the latest repairs in a series of rocket tests at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), the Kennedy Space Center. Currently, workers have closed the SLS meeting to prepare for the launch to Launch Complex 39B.
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“The launch exercise is scheduled to start on March 17 at 6pm Eastern time (6am the day after Indonesia time),” said Mike Bolger, program manager for Exploration Ground Systems, Thursday, February 24.
It took about an hour for the vehicle and launch tower to move out of the VAB in the giant transport vehicle. Then they made the 11-hour journey to the tarmac.
SLS will spend about a month on the pad undergoing tests. Among them, tanking tests and countdown exercises called wet dress rehearsals for about two weeks. The core stage will be filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant and then go through a countdown, until the time when the four RS-25 core stage engines fire in actual launch.
“We’re going to be slow counting, purposeful, and demonstrating all interfaces,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager.
At the end of the wet dress rehearsal, the vehicle will roll back to the VAB in preparation for the final launch. That includes resolving any issues found during testing as well as charging the battery on the Orion spacecraft and updating the flight computer software on SLS.
“There’s a fair amount of work still to be done, but that’s all I think we understand very well,” Bolger said.
Watch the full video of the Artemis 1 mission simulation.
NASA expects the final work on the VAB to take about a month, though managers can’t say for sure. “I don’t want to say whether 30 days is conservative or not,” Bolger said. “I admit there is a lot of work.”
The agency does not plan to set a launch date for the Artemis 1 mission until after rehearsal. “We recognize it’s a time period that can be very challenging,” said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development.
However, the launch of Artemis 1 in April will certainly not happen. “We are still evaluating for the late May (launch) window,” he said.
He also admitted that he did not know whether there were vehicle components originating from Russia or Ukraine in the Artemis 1 mission. Because their availability could be affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To his knowledge, the only major non-US component is the Orion service module, provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).
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