NASA announces that the Artemis I mission will be ready for launch in a month

Enlarge / NASA's Space Launch System will launch at night on its current timeline. Trevor Mahlman

Just over two weeks have passed since NASA carefully rolled its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft inside Kennedy Space's massive Vehicle Assembly Building Center to protect equipment from Hurricane Ian.

Meanwhile, engineers and technicians from the space agency and its contractors conducted a detailed inspection of the rocket and spacecraft to determine its flight readiness. This was an important process as the vehicles have been in a fully stacked configuration for almost a year, since October 21, 2021. NASA wanted to assess the continued viability of the batteries on the rocket, the hypergolic fuel stored on the Orion's service module, and more.

The good news from these inspections is that only minimal work is needed to prepare the rocket for its next launch attempt, NASA said in a blog post Wednesday.

“Inspections and analysis over the past week have confirmed that minimal work is required to prepare the rocket and spacecraft for deployment to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the rollback due to Hurricane Ian," the agency said. . "Teams will perform standard maintenance to repair minor foam and cork damage to the thermal protection system and recharge or replace the rocket, several secondary payloads and flight termination system batteries."

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As a result, NASA now plans to move the Artemis I stack to the launch site as early as Friday, November 4. This would allow a first attempt to launch the mission at 00:07 ET (04:07 UTC) on November 14. There is a 67 minute launch window for this opportunity. This launch date would allow a 25.5-day mission for the Orion spacecraft before it crashes into the Pacific Ocean.

NASA has also requested two additional launch opportunities, Wednesday, November 16 at 1:04 a.m. ET and Saturday, November 19 at 1:45 a.m. ET, two two-hour launch windows.

The space agency first attempted to launch the rocket on August 29, but hours before the scheduled liftoff, a sensor on one of the rocket's four main engines gave an erroneous temperature reading. This eventually resulted in a scrubbing of the launch attempt, but NASA later said the sensor issue was not an issue. The agency then made a second attempt on September 3, but it was scrubbed two hours before the launch window opened due to a persistent hydrogen leak. After the repairs, NASA conducted a test refueling which appears to have verified the integrity of these leak patches.

However, NASA has still not been able to complete a full fueling and countdown demonstration test, so there may be other issues that crop up in the last 30 seconds before liftoff that have not yet been discovered.