‘Super-large rocket’ for US moon return is close[과학을읽다]
Part failure was discovered during the final safety check, and it was stopped and then resumed.
NASA’s super-large space launch vehicle ‘SLS’ is mounted on launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the ‘non-combustible fuel injection test’, the final safety check procedure. Photo source: NASA.
[아시아경제 김봉수 기자] The lunar return project ‘Artemis’ program, which the US is ambitiously preparing for, is breathtaking. A new super-large rocket comparable to the Saturn-5 rocket used for landing on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s was newly manufactured and was undergoing a final safety check, but a problem was discovered and stopped.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) canceled the non-combustible propellant/fuel injection test (Wet Dress Rehearsal) for the Artemis 1 program’s launch vehicle ‘Space Launch System (SLS)’, which had been in effect since the 1st (3rd). local time). This projectile is expected to carry out a mission to go to and return to lunar orbit by loading the Orion spacecraft during a test vehicle between May and June before the US is conducting a full-fledged manned landing on the moon.
NASA put the SLS on the 39B launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and conducted this test, the final safety check procedure, from 5:00 pm on the 1st to about 45 hours and 40 minutes. After injecting about 700,000 gallons (about 3.2 million liters) of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and oxygen, it is a test that counts down until just before the engine is ignited. In the process, fuel and propellant leaks and various equipment abnormalities were checked. It is a procedure called wet dress rehearsal in the sense of soaking fuel and propellant tanks in comparison to dress rehearsal, which is the final procedure of the wedding ceremony. It is an essential process that countries all over the world go through before launching a rocket. However, this test failed due to a problem with the rocket launcher. NASA is said to have confirmed that the fan, which maintains positive pressure inside the rocket to prevent the inflow of harmful gases, has failed. NASA said in a statement that “failure to the equipment made it impossible for engineers to safely inject fuel and cryogenic propellant into the rocket’s body.”
NASA plans to resume rehearsals on Monday, 4th local time. It was decided to force the launch in consideration of the availability of liquid oxygen and hydrogen and a different launch schedule. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to be launched on the 6th for a manned space flight (AX-1 mission) to Axiom Space’s International Space Station (ISS) from Launch Pad 39A located right next door.
“The technicians are repairing the broken fan,” said Mike Sarafin, director of Artemis 1 at NASA. said
Meanwhile, NASA is conducting the Artemis program to resume lunar exploration after 50 years after completing the Apollo program in 1972, which made the first human landing on the moon in 1969. A manned landing will be attempted on the lunar surface as early as 2025. The Artemis 1 mission is a performance test vehicle for the recently developed SLS and the manned spacecraft Orion. It carries the Orion ship empty, goes to orbit the moon, and then returns. If successful, NASA plans to conduct another similar experiment with a human on the Orion spacecraft during next year, and then attempt a manned landing on the moon as early as 2025. About 10 candidates were selected as astronauts to descend on the moon, including Korean-American Johnny Kim.
By Kim Bong-soo, staff reporter bskim@asiae.co.kr