NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop a mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, after being rolled out to the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission is the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, SLS rocket, and supporting ground systems. Launch of the uncrewed flight test is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 29. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

‘Incandescently expensive’ SLS scrubs first attempt at lunar test flight

NASA’s Artemis and its ride to a 42-day mission in lunar orbit are, to say the least, a polarizing project.

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This post appeared as part of our Three Points Newsletter on August 29, 2022

The Space Launch System, NASA’s largest-ever rocket for human spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, made an unsuccessful attempt to get the uncrewed Orion capsule and the Artemis 1 mission off the ground on August 29. The first launch window of the incredibly complex test flight was stymied by a bleed stage that wasn’t able to sufficiently cool the core stage’s number three RS-25 main engine aboard the new SLS rocket. That finicky main engine is repurposed for SLS and flew on six Space Shuttle flights going all the way back to December 2006. NASA will try again no earlier than September 2.

Perhaps one of SpaceX’s biggest contributions to a shift in the public expectation around space flight is that rockets are now reusable. Many news packages on SLS noted that the rocket isn’t reusable, once the norm in spaceflight that only shifted for the first time in 2015. For the single-use SLS, NASA’s RS-25s are now expendable motors.

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Jon Ostrower
Jon Ostrower is Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, where he leads coverage of the global aerospace and aviation industries. Prior to launching TAC in June 2018, Mr. Ostrower served as Aviation Editor for CNN Worldwide, guiding the network’s global coverage of the business and operations of aviation. Mr. Ostrower joined CNN in 2016 following four and a half years at the Wall Street Journal. Based first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C., he covered Boeing, aviation safety, and the business of global aerospace. Before that, Mr. Ostrower was editor of FlightBlogger for Flightglobal and Flight International Magazine covering the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and other new aircraft programs from 2007 to 2012. He is also an instructor at the University of Southern California in the Viterbi School of Engineering's Aviation Safety and Security program. Mr. Ostrower, a Boston native, graduated from The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication. He is based in Seattle.

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