After several years of delays and unprecedented failures, NASA's Artemis 1 rocket finally
lifted up from the mobile launch tower and headed into orbit.
NASA'S Artemis 1 wait is finally over.
But everything doesn’t look right with the launch pad.
We shouldn't be so flabbergasted that it anyways, because the Nasa Artemis 1 is one of the most
powerful rockets in the world that have ever lifted off from a mobile launch pad.
Stick around as we discuss more about the damages discovered with the launch tower after
the Artemis 1 rocket successfully lifted itself from the base.
Rocket liftoff works by forcefully ejecting controlled, highly flammable fluid having
a light density, compressing the combustive fluid through a smaller nozzle or Thermo orifice
pipe, then igniting the fluid to burn as it is released through a wider nozzle at the
base of the rocket.
This thermal process pushes the rocket to move upright from rest upward until it fights,
wins gravitational force, and finally finds its way to space.
The hard truth is that after the Artemis 1 rocket went through all these studies process
and lifted off to orbit, the 355 feet tall mobile tower which launched the rocket was
left with damages, as a result of the heavy push of the four RS-25 engines, with the about
8.8 million pounds of thrust.
Well, the tower was helpless and broke down even though NASA has spent a whopping $1 billion
building the mobile tower for over a decade.
When the most powerful rocket in the world is about to launch off, the environment is
not in the best possible condition for life.
The massive Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule were launched into space
by NASA in preparation for a historic flyby of the moon.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the roar of a NASA rocket could once again
be heard at the launchpad where shuttles and Apollo missions began their adventures into
space, crowds of space enthusiasts who are eager to see for themselves how the rocket
will liftoff observed the event.
It didn't take long for the rocket to get beyond the launch tower and begin its ascension
through the atmosphere, leaving an orange ombre trail behind as it burned.
The rocket's boosters ignited simultaneously, causing it to rise above an explosion of flames.
Derrol Nail, a Livestream commentator for NASA, announced that Artemis 1 was about to
lift off.
In his words he said; "We rise together, back to the moon and beyond."
The SLS boosters finished burning up its fuel after two minutes and then fell off.
The core stage rocket ran out of fuel eight minutes after liftoff and split too, leaving
behind the uncrewed Orion capsule still attached to the upper-stage rocket and the service
module, provided by the European Space Agency, which supplies the spacecraft's main propulsion
and power.
Over 16,000 miles per hour, Orion went on, and a short while later, it unfolded its solar
arrays.
If all goes as planned, the capsule will detach from the SLS upper stage after around two
hours.
The upper stage will then scatter ten CubeSats, small spacecraft, in batches as it drifts
away, sending them on brief missions to the moon, Mars, and an asteroid close to the Earth.
Orion will continue its journey in the meantime, taking roughly 10 days to get to the moon.
There, it will spend a few weeks in orbit known as a "far retrograde orbit," which balances
the moon's and Earth's gravitational pulls and won’t require much fuel to keep going.
It will take pictures of the Earth and its satellites while orbiting the moon, and another
planet that resembles the famous "Earthrise" picture taken on the Apollo 8 mission, and
gather radiation data so that scientists can learn more about the potential health risks
for astronauts on prolonged missions outside the Earth's insulating atmosphere.
The Space Launch System rocket reached the last frontier with nearly 9 million pounds
of thrust and successfully launched an uncrewed Orion spacecraft toward the moon.
Although the mission was largely successful, NASA is attentively examining the damages
on the mobile launcher to prepare for future Artemis program flights, including the next
one that will have people on board: Artemis 2, which is scheduled to orbit the moon no
early than in 2024.
"The damage that we did see pertains to, really, just a couple of areas," said NASA's Mike
Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, in a talk with reporters on Monday, 21st November.
"It just goes to show," he added, "that the environment is not the friendliest when you
have the world's most powerful rocket lifting off."
A water suppression system was used during the launch of Artemis 1 to lessen damage to
the launching deck, just like the space shuttle before it.
This system performed as expected.
Nevertheless, Sarafin claimed that the sheer force of the liftoff caused the paint to peel
off the launch tower deck of Artemis 1.
Less successful were the elevators for maintaining the launch tower; pictures show crooked framing
around at least one of the two lifts after the doors were torn off by the shock wave
produced by the SLS.
"The elevator system is not functioning right now," Sarafin explained.
"The pressure basically blew the doors off our elevators ... right now, the elevators
are not working, and we need to get those back into service."
Big launches always cause damage to launch towers; the question is never 'whether,' but
'how much?'
Aside from explosion and heat damage, rockets as massive as the SLS can sustain significant
damage from high sound pressure levels.
This is, of course, the purpose for the large amounts of water that flood the launch pad's
base; it's to soften the sound, but it doesn't extend to the upper floors.
The boom is so powerful that without any damping, it may shake the pad apart and harm the rocket
itself.
It's a serious issue.
NASA's original mission was to find better ways to fly rockets.
However, as time passed, politicians gained more and more power.
The location of the factories was critical.
Money became the most essential goal, but aside from that, NASA is preparing to take
over space even before SpaceX and Elon Musk can say, Jack.
Minor damage was caused to the pneumatic lines used to service the massive SLS tanks, which
deceived oxygen sensors on the pad into detecting low oxygen levels due to the leaking gas,
according to NASA officials.
Managers also found two small flight items near the pad that shouldn't have been there.
One was a piece of RTV (insulating caulking) from the bottom of the Orion capsule.
The other was "throat plug material" that came out of the rocket during liftoff.
Now, the most important question is, will the rocket survive in space without these
two?
Nevertheless, Mission managers had decided before launch that the RTV problem would not
be risky.
Sarafin called SLS "a very clean system" because the damage was so small, and it won’t cause
severe impact to the rocket.
He also said that the rocket exceeded its performance goals and that the team will make
some changes for Artemis 2.
"This is about keeping our astronauts as safe as we can, given the hostile environment we're
flying into," he said "This is very important to us.
Our astronauts' flight safety is the most important thing."
NASA told the press not to take pictures of the launch site after a moon mission takes
off.
This is another big move that keeps our minds on the sky.
What is it that they really don't want us to see?
Nasa stopped the press from filming the launch site of its Space Launch System after it sent
the Artemis I Moon mission into space.
The press was taking videos and recording what was going on.
Several space reporters said on Twitter that the agency told them they couldn't take pictures
of the Artemis 1 launch tower after the rocket took off.
The senior space editor at Ars Technica, Eric Berger, tweeted that NASA did not give a reason.
The reporter also said that his sources said the ban was a way to save face after the launch
hurt the tower.
But we thought this was just a suggestion.
"Now sources say that yes, Launch Complex-39B tower was damaged during the Artemis I launch,"
Berger wrote on Twitter.
"Basically, leaks and damage happened where they weren't supposed to happen."
Later, Washington Post space reporter Christian Davenport posted a statement from NASA that
seemed to back up Berger's sources, but he stressed that there was "no word on damage"
to the launch pad.
"Because of how things are set up now, there are restrictions on the license because of
the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and photos are not allowed at this time,"
Davenport was told in a letter.
"As expected, there is also launch debris around the pad, which the team is looking
at as we speak."
No matter what NASA's reasons may be, it's pretty clear that the agency doesn't want
unapproved photos of its expensive and late Space Launch System rocket to get out to the
public.
NASA loves positive publicity, and not the other way round.
Do you think it was a good idea for Nasa's launch operators to prohibit the press from
taking photos during the SLS liftoff?
Maybe Blue Origin could do the same and hide its BE 4 Failure that Shamefully Sinks Millions
Of Dollars