The first crewed mission to lunar orbit in 54 years will have to wait at least another month following anomalies detected during the pre-flight wet dress rehearsal last week.
First it was an unseasonable cold snap at the launch facility at Cape Canaveral, then a hydrogen during the fueling stage of the rehearsal was identified, seemingly corrected but ultimately needing further analysis.
NASA’s press release noted that engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives. But to allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, the space agency will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test.
Teams did successfully fill all tanks in both the core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage before a team of five was sent to the launch pad to finish Orion closeout operations. Engineers conducted a first run at terminal countdown operations during the test, counting down to approximately 5 minutes left in the countdown, before the ground launch sequencer automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.
In addition to the liquid hydrogen leak, a valve associated with Orion crew module hatch pressurization, which recently was replaced, required retorquing, and closeout operations took longer than planned. Cold weather that affected several cameras and other equipment didn’t impede wet dress rehearsal activities, but would have required additional attention on launch day.
Finally, engineers have been troubleshooting dropouts of audio communication channels across ground teams in the past few weeks leading up to the test. Several dropouts reoccurred during the wet dress rehearsal.
NASA says with March as the potential launch window, teams will fully review data from the test, mitigate each issue, and return to testing ahead of setting an official target launch date.
