NASA and Boeing test fired a gargantuan Space Launch System rocket for the second time Thursday, a full-duration eight-minute “hot fire” needed to clear the way for a long-delayed maiden flight late this year or early next to kick off the space agency’s Artemis moon program.
Two months after glitches cut short an initial attempt on January 16, the 21-story SLS core stage’s four shuttle-heritage RS-25 engines ignited at 120 millisecond intervals at 4:37 p.m. EDT, quickly throttling up to a combined thrust of 1.6 million pounds of thrust with an ear-splitting roar.
The white-hot exhaust plumes instantly vaporized torrents of cooling water flooding the base of the massive B-2 test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, just east of New Orleans, sending huge clouds of steam billowing into a cloudless blue sky.
While rockets normally fade from view and hearing as they climb toward space, the SLS booster remained in firmly in place, blasting a nearby viewing area with a crackling wall of sound as the engines burned through more than 700,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants.
The core stage of the Space Launch System, NASA’s planned moon rocket, is tested at the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., on March 18, 2021. With this critical test finally finished, NASA now will send the rocket segment to Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations. NASA VIA AP
The test run called for throttling the engines down and back up as they will be during an actual flight, testing the rocket’s thrust vector control, or steering, system and monitoring how propellant tank pressures are maintained as the fuel level changes.
Data from hundreds of sensors were recorded throughout to precisely characterize a wide variety of parameters, including critical vibration levels at different thrust settings. The data will feed into 10 “detailed verification objectives,” or DVOs, required to demonstrate the rocket is ready for flight.
Mission managers said they expected to collect all the data needed in the first four minutes or so, but they let the engines run twice that long to simulate an actual climb to space. That also allowed them monitor performance when the tanks are nearly empty and the rocket weighs a fraction of its initial 2.3 million pounds.
“This is not by any means a vanilla firing the core stage,” Boeing SLS program manager John Shannon said before the test. “Since it’s a highly instrumented vehicle, we’re taking that opportunity to do some very aggressive maneuvers of the thrust vector control system. … It’s going to stress the vehicle.
“Our primary goal is to not only get the hot fire data but also to protect the stage (for use as) the first flight article. So, we’re kind of threading a needle here between keeping the vehicle safe and gathering this data.”
The engines ended up firing for eight minutes and 19 seconds. John Honeycutt, manager of the SLS program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said “everything that we’ve seen in the test today looks nominal. So, I would say the core stage got an A-plus.”
Assuming a more detailed analysis confirms that, “it is still possible to fly by the end of the year,” Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s acting administrator, told CBS News before the test. “Now, we don’t have a lot of schedule margin to the end of the year (but) it’s possible.”
That said, he added, “we know that integrating a vehicle at the Cape the first time through, we’re going to find some issues and so, we could push past the end of the year. But if things go well, we absolutely could get the work done and launch in the November-December time.”
NASA is counting on the Space Launch System rocket to propel the agency’s Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsules on flights back to the moon, using commercially built landers to carry astronauts down to the surface for the first time in 50 years.
For an actual launch, the Space Launch System first stage will be attached to a pair of already tested Northrop Grumman solid-fuel boosters, each one generating 3.6 million pounds of thrust, and a hydrogen-fueled upper stage topped off by an Orion crew capsule.
The fully assembled SLS rocket will weigh 5.75 million pounds, stand 322 feet tall and generate 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, making it the most powerful operational rocket in the world.
It also will be one of the most expensive ever built. NASA’s inspector general reported last March that total SLS program costs were expected to climb above $18 billion by the time the Artemis 1 rocket finally takes off.
The high price tag has prompted critics to argue in favor of less powerful, but much less expensive, boosters like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. But NASA managers say the SLS is the only rocket available in the near term that is capable of accommodating the Orion crew capsule and other large components envisioned for the Artemis program.
During the initial test run in January, the booster’s flight computer shut down the engines about one minute into the firing after detecting low pressures in the hydraulics used by the thrust vector control steering system. That problem was blamed on software, which was modified for the second attempt.
Other adjustments were made, along with repairs of a liquid oxygen valve that combined to push the second attempt to Thursday.
As reporters and photographers look on, a towering plume of steam billows into the Mississippi sky as the four RS-25 engines powering the first stage of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket fire during an eight-minutes test run. WILLIAM HARWOOD/CBS NEWS
If analysis of telemetry confirms the rocket performed properly the second time around, engineers will spend about a month carrying out detailed inspections and readying the core stage for shipment by barge to the Kennedy Space Center.
Once in Florida, the stage will be bolted to a pair of already-assembled solid-fuel boosters, each one taller than the Statue of Liberty, followed by attachment of its waiting second stage and an Orion crew capsule.
A NASA infographic showing the components of the Space Launch System rocket’s core stage. NASA
Assuming no other major problems develop, NASA could be ready to launch the first SLS on an unpiloted maiden flight — Artemis 1 — before the end of the year, sending the Orion capsule on a long, looping flight around the moon and back.
The first piloted flight, Artemis 2, would carry astronauts on a similar around-the-moon mission before sending the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface in the program’s third flight.
Working on a schedule imposed by the Trump administration, NASA planned to launch the Artemis 2 mission in the 2023 timeframe, followed by a piloted moon landing by the end of 2024.
But Congress has not yet provided the full funding needed for a new lunar lander and while the Biden administration has indicated support for the Artemis program, it’s not yet clear when a landing could be attempted.
banner image: Artist’s impression of an SLS rocket blasting off. NASA
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
