NASA will roll the Artemis I Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Monday, Sept. 26. First motion is targeted for 11 p.m. EDT.
Managers met Monday morning and made the decision based on the latest weather predictions associated with Hurricane Ian, after additional data gathered overnight did not show improving expected conditions for the Kennedy Space Center area. The decision allows time for employees to address the needs of their families and protect the integrated rocket and spacecraft system. The time of first motion also is based on the best predicted conditions for rollback to meet weather criteria for the move.
This means the earliest possible launch opportunity has probably slipped to 2022-11-12. There are launch opportunities from October 17th through October 31, but there probably won’t be enough time to complete the work in the VAB, roll back, and perform required work at the pad to make that window.
With Artemis I preparing to once again roll down the hill from the launch pad to the Vehicle Assembly Building and then, eventually, roll back up again, it’s time to recall its theme song, “The Grand Old Duke of York”.
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
When they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.
NASA will wait until at least the middle of November before attempting another launch of the Space Launch System on the Artemis 1 mission, citing the impacts from Hurricane Ian.
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However, NASA said it has ruled out attempting a launch of the Artemis 1 mission during the next launch period, which opens Oct. 17 and runs through Oct. 31. Instead, it will focus on the following launch window, which runs from Nov. 12 to 27.
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NASA, in the Sept. 30 statement, did not state when in the November launch period it might be ready to attempt a launch. “Over the coming days, managers will assess the scope of work to perform while in the VAB and identify a specific date for the next launch attempt,” the agency stated.
One issue for the November launch is that, unlike the launch opportunities in August and September, many of the windows on individual days are at night. Launch windows from Nov. 12 through 19 range from nearly midnight to 1:45 a.m. Eastern. Launch windows from Nov. 22 to 27 are in the morning to midday.
“Our preference is to launch in the daylight,” Free said at the Sept. 27 briefing, because of the improved tracking of the rocket during a daytime launch. He would not, though, rule out a nighttime launch for the first SLS mission. “I think we look at the risk-versus-benefit trades” for launching at night, he said.
NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST
Wow—they’re going to do the first launch at night. I can’t remember any other rocket that did that. They usually want the tracking cameras to be able to see clearly “just in case”.
I think this leaves out the considerable sunk costs already paid with the Orion program.
According to the book of knowledge, to date we have already spent the equivalent of $21B mini-dollars with the program (source). This is where the pithy term @jdougan is looking for underdelivering with massive cost overruns would come in handy.
For fiscal years 2006 through 2020, the Orion expended funding totaling $18,764 million in nominal dollars. This is equivalent to $21,477 million adjusting to 2020 dollars using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices.[53]
For fiscal year 2021, $1,401 million[54] was requested for the Orion program.
Excluded from the prior Orion costs are:
Most costs “for production, operations, or sustainment of additional crew capsules, despite plans to use and possibly enhance this capsule after 2021”;[68] production and operations contracts were awarded going into fiscal year 2020[69]
Costs of the first service module and spare parts, which are provided by ESA[70] for the test flight of Orion (about US$1 billion)[71]
Costs to assemble, integrate, prepare and launch the Orion and its launcher (funded under the NASA Ground Operations Project,[72] currently about $400M[73] per year)
Costs of the launcher, the SLS, for the Orion spacecraft
This is where the pithy term @jdougan is looking for underdelivering with massive cost overruns would come in handy.
I may have miscommunicated. The reason I’m thinking about this is because I noticed that big programs are rarely allowed to “fail” anymore. They can always point to the end result and say that it meets the goals in a satisfactory manner. That this was achieved though by cheating the system and running the program until success is achieved is brushed off or you get a bunch of bafflegab about “innovation is hard”. In some sense they aren’t underdelivering as it meets carefully specified core goals.
“Boondoggle” is close, but has an implication of a program that wasn’t worth doing at any price over the trivial. In wargames there is the concept of a “partial victory”, which I could be redone as “partial success” or “partial failure”, but that doesn’t have enough impact.
About twenty years ago I rented a big truck for a longish period of time. When I returned it to the rental car company, they accidentally gave me a copy of their internal paperwork. It was a full page table and one of the columns was labeled “Successful failure”.
I kept that taped at my desk for a few years, until it got lost in one of the many moves.
My take is that intrinsic to the concept you are trying to articulate is the tension between successfully accomplishing an outcome, while at the same suffocating potential alternatives that will no longer see the light of day because all the resources are allocated elsewhere.
