It’s time to make or break NASA’s next mega-rocket: the space launch system.
Why it’s important: The rocket, with about ten years of development and a few million dollars above budget, is expected to be launched for the first time this year. Its success is key to NASA’s plans to get people and payloads to deep space destinations like the Moon.
- “This is the year the SLS has to prove it can work,” Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society told me. “It simply came to our notice then. It’s been ten years now. “
Leading the news: NASA is expected to host what will be one of the biggest tests of the SLS on January 17th.
- This test you will see the four engines in the center stage of the huge rocket shoot in unison without flying.
- The rocket will ignite for up to eight minutes in order to see how the reinforcement can behave during an actual launch.
What follows: The SLS is expected to launch into space for the first time in November 2021, sending an unmanned Orion capsule around the Moon and back to Earth.
But but, but … it remains to be seen if this happens in time.
- According to a report from the Government Accountability Office published last month, there is not much room in the schedule for possible delays and corrections that could occur as a result of the activation of evidence or other issues.
- If the first flight of the SLS and Orion is delayed, could have a cascading effect on future NASA lunar missions, including the planned manned lunar landing for 2024, William Russell, one of the authors of the GAO report, told me.
Context: Congress led NASA to build the SLS in 2010.
- Today there are commercial space companies, including Blue Origin and SpaceX, working to develop rockets that can launch astronauts and payloads to the Moon and beyond for a cheaper price than the cost of an SLS.
- Some have suggested that NASA should buy a trip to the moon aboard a commercial rocket instead of the SLS, at least at first.
The other side: Proponents of the SLS program claim that even with these heavy commercial rockets expected to be online, NASA still needs its own launcher to meet its unique needs as an exploration agency.
- The entire system, including SLS and Orion, are built to work together, so it’s not practical to change another type of rocket at this stage of development, Dreier said.
- The SLS program has also returned much-needed work to NASA and the contractors (Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman) responsible for building and testing the rocket.
The summary: NASA’s future deep space exploration plans depend on the success of the SLS, and soon.