By Andy Pasztor and Andrew Tangel
NASA and Boeing Co. suffered a potentially major setback in
their deep-space ambitions when the engines for a giant new rocket
shut down prematurely Saturday during a key test on the ground.
The engines were supposed to produce power for eight minutes but
shut down after about 60 seconds while fastened to a stand at the
Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Program officials had said
four minutes would be the minimum time to gain confidence in the
reliability of the engines, fuel system and surrounding
structures.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said
they couldn't immediately determine the cause of the premature
shutdown, and therefore it was too early to determine what fixes
would be necessary or even if the test needed to be repeated. They
said engineers didn't know whether it was a hardware, software or
sensor malfunction.
Boeing is the prime contractor for the mammoth Space Launch
System booster, which is more powerful than the Saturn V that
blasted Apollo astronauts toward the moon in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. It was slated for its first uncrewed launch late this
year, but that schedule is now in flux. Political and budget
pressures on the program, projected to cost a total of between $19
billion and $23 billion to complete, were already increasing.
Departing NASA chief James Bridenstine repeatedly said in a news
conference that the test shouldn't be considered a failure, because
engineers and program managers gained important data. But he also
said, "It's not everything we hoped it would be."
"Not everything went according to script," he said. A Boeing
spokesman declined to comment.
The setback comes at a difficult time for SLS and Boeing.
Industry and government officials expect the Biden administration
to shelve President Trump's vision of landing astronauts on the
moon as early as 2024. For many years, influential Senate
Republicans have championed SLS -- and annually appropriated robust
funding for it -- despite its troubled development. But with the
Senate now controlled by Democrats, those supporters stand to lose
significant clout.
Even before Saturday's failed test, former NASA officials and
outside space experts said they expected that for early lunar
missions SLS -- intended to become NASA's premier deep-space rocket
-- might take a back seat to rockets under development by Space
Exploration Technologies Corp., run by Tesla Inc. Chief Executive
Elon Musk, and Blue Origin Federation LLC, run by Amazon.com Inc.
Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.
Months before the test, according to industry officials, leaders
of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc., which manufactures the SLS
rocket's RS-25 engines, expressed growing concerns the entire SLS
program could be curtailed or significantly delayed. These
officials said the company leaders were telling bipartisan
supporters on Capitol Hill they worried NASA was considering such
commercially developed alternatives to support the initial lunar
missions. SLS has been under development for a decade, with
individual launches expected to cost more than $1 billion
apiece.
Other elements of lunar missions for astronauts currently on the
books also are likely to change, according to industry officials.
Awards to two rival teams to build lunar landers, previously
anticipated in February or March, are likely to be delayed as the
Biden team reassesses those projects. So far, Congress has
allocated about one-quarter of the funds NASA previously requested
to support producing and testing such landers by 2024.
In addition, according to one person briefed on the issue,
barring a last-minute change in plans, the Biden transition team
shortly is expected to name Steve Jurczyk, a veteran career NASA
official, as acting NASA administrator, succeeding Mr. Bridenstine
who previously announced his departure. Mr. Jurczyk now serves as
associate administrator, the agency's highest-ranking civil
servant.
Throughout most of his 33-year NASA career, Mr. Jurczyk has been
associated most closely with robotic and scientific missions, areas
new White House science advisers are likely to emphasize. Before
Saturday's problematic test, Congress already moved to increase
NASA's research budget for some earth-imaging and climate-change
programs, a trend that industry and government officials expect
will accelerate. NASA press officials couldn't immediately be
reached for comment. Mr. Biden's transition team didn't immediately
return a request for comment.
Congress originally called for the SLS rocket and a companion
deep-space capsule, known as Orion, to take flight by the end of
2016. Later, NASA's target date for a 2018 uncrewed launch slipped
to 2019, and then, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, to the end
of 2021.
A series of reports by government watchdogs have highlighted
scheduling delays and safety issues, while noting that program
managers burned through budget reserves and took testing shortcuts
to make up time.
Backers of the SLS program have sought to maintain public
support for it. With development slow and the first flight expected
to lack the fanfare and publicity associated with carrying a crew,
proponents had viewed Saturday's test as a way to generate
momentum.
Boeing's space program has suffered a series of setbacks in
recent years. In December 2019, software errors botched the launch
of its Starliner space capsule, highlighting recent engineering
lapses across the company, which also makes commercial jets and
military aircraft.
The Starliner capsule is intended to ferry astronauts to the
International Space Station. The SLS rocket, on which Boeing is the
prime contractor for the various stages as well as the flight
control system, is a separate program. It is intended to carry
astronauts to the moon and deeper into the solar system using the
Orion capsule, a different spacecraft built by a team headed by
Lockheed Martin Corp.
After the test, Mr. Bridenstine told reporters "I have
absolutely total confidence in the team to figure out" what went
wrong and "how to fix it and then get after it again."
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel
at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2021 16:46 ET (21:46 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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