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NATIONWIDE — As NASA prepares for the wet dress rehearsal of its Artemis II moon rocket and capsule, many are noticing similarities between the cold temperatures this week and how they played a part in the demise of the space shuttle Challenger and its crew 40 years ago.
However, an expert at Florida Tech explains why the cold weather should not impact Artemis II.
What You Need To Know
- A lot of lessons were learned after the Challenger incident
- Get more space coverage here ▶
- 🔻Scroll down to watch interviews with Don Platt, director of Florida Tech’s Spaceport Education Center🔻
The Artemis II will see NASA’s Cmdr. Gregory Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut mission specialist Jeremy Hansen do a flyby of the moon in the Orion spacecraft.
However, the wet dress rehearsal of Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that is currently set for Saturday will see cold temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 Celsius).
Forty years ago on Jan. 28, the space shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds after launch, killing its crew. The explosion took the lives of Michael J. Smith, Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, S. Christa McAuliffe, Gregory B. Jarvis, and Judith A. Resnik.
The explosion was caused when the O-rings failed at cold temperatures. The rings on the rocket create a seal to prevent exhaust gases from leaking.
The O-rings were rated to be flown at 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.9 Celsius) or higher. But when the launch happened at 11:38 a.m. ET, the temperature was at 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 Celsius).
With the chilly temperatures that are currently sweeping through the Sunshine State, many are worried about Artemis II’s wet dress rehearsal for Saturday and the earliest launch attempt on Friday, Feb. 06.
However, Don Platt, director of Florida Tech’s Spaceport Education Center, shares how the lessons learned after the Challenger incident were already applied to other shuttle missions, which do impact Artemis II.
“Well, even in the shuttle program itself, there was about a three-and-a-half-year delay or so, after the Challenger disaster, and so that time was spent reviewing the entire shuttle program, but specifically reviewing these these segment joints that I just talked about and redesigning how the O-rings, these rubber seal material segments fit into that joint. And they added additional redundancy, essentially another layer,” Platt said.
He continued how these improvements are still being used.
“Now, of course, you know, after these 40 years, NASA has spent a lot of time looking at ways to improve the joint and materials have, of course, come a long way since the 1980s as well. And so now the the feeling is that the SLS solid rocket booster joints are robust and will not be a major concern at temperatures even down into the 30s and 20s,” Platt shared.
He explained that with crewed missions, where humans will be on board a spacecraft, extra caution takes place, especially during wet dress rehearsals.
And this caution goes beyond the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule. It also includes other things.
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“And all of the components that connect to the rocket to provide propellent into the rocket and to provide electrical power, to make sure that all the interfaces for when the astronauts take the elevator up into the top of the rocket, all of that stuff is working fine and everybody knows exactly what they’re doing,” he said, adding, “You don’t want to have some sort of thing pop up there when they’re actually ready to go and and ready to get into the vehicle and and fly to the moon.”
In many ways, the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022 was a wet dress rehearsal for the Artemis II, Platt said. It was during this test flight of the Orion capsule that an issue with the heat shield was discovered.
A material called Avcoat that was on the heat shield broke off in chunks during the re-entry phase of Artemis I.
The Avcoat material is designed to protect a spacecraft from extreme temperatures by burning away as it heats up, instead of sending that heat to the capsule itself.
However, during re-entry, it broke up into chunks instead of burning away. This issue pushed back the Artemis II and III missions, but NASA has stated it has resolved the problem.
Platt shared how the Artemis missions will have a profound impact on people.
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