NASA is tentatively delaying the maiden voyage of its much ballyhooed Space Launch System (SLS) for the second time this year, saying it will not be ready for takeoff until perhaps 2020.

The SLS has been in development since 2011. A heavy-lift rocket in combination with a crew capsule called the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the SLS lacks for nothing in ambition. NASA plans to the SLS to be 385 feet tall with it a liftoff weight of 6.5 million pounds. Its four RS-25 engines would provide enough power to keep eight 747s aloft, and at liftoff it would produce a thrust equivalent to 160,000 Corvette engines—15 percent stronger than the famed Saturn V that took Neil Armstrong to the Moon.

The SLS has come to take up roughly half of NASA's budget devoted to space exploration, the other half going towards maintaining the International Space Station. A single SLS launch will cost $500 million. For comparison, a SpaceX Falcon 9 costs only $62 million to launch, although it can only lift around 18 percent of the mass. NASA was hoping that by getting the SLS' first unmanned test flight off the ground by late 2018 would show that rocket had earned its price tag.

Numerous problems resulted in the agency moving the launch date of Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) to 2019 in April. The technical problems, discussed in a Government Accountability Office report issued in April, highlight the difficulties of building a giant rocket ship. One issue: welding on the rocket's core stage, which acts as the SLS’s fuel tank and structural backbone, was found to be unacceptably weak. The European Service Module, built by the European Space Agency to maintain life support inside the Orion, is late. Throw in a February tornado that damaged the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where the SLS core is being built and the entire project hit a snag.

The Space Launch System (SLS) core stage pathfinder, which in size, shape and weight resembles the actual 212-foot-tall core stage. NASA/MSFC/MAF/Steven Seipel

Now NASA is hedging its bets and saying that 2020 looks more likely, according to SpaceFlightNow. Says acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot:

“While the review of the possible manufacturing and production schedule risks indicate a launch date of June 2020, the agency is managing to December 2019. Since several of the key risks identified have not been actually realized, we are able to put in place mitigation strategies for those risks to protect the December 2019 date.”



Despite the ongoing delays and problems, there is an overall confidence in both NASA and its contractors at Boeing that the rocket is on course for an eventual liftoff from Cape Carnaval.

"The big items are done, and the team is focused on the intricate details of outfitting the flight hardware to perform specific tasks for the most powerful rocket in the world," said Chad Bryant, an SLS core stage manufacturing lead, in September. “When assembled, the core stage will stand taller than a 20-story building and include hundreds of cables for everything from data collection to propulsion systems.”



Source: SpaceFlightNow

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