WASHINGTON, August 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's decision by NASA to scrub the maiden launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) is due to a problem with one of the liquid hydrogen fuel lines used to cool down the four RS-25D engines that power the core stage of the super heavy-lift rocket. The engines were built by Aerojet Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, CA. The prime contractor for SLS is Boeing of Huntsville, AL.
The first launch of the SLS, which is now six years behind schedule, has been delayed more than a dozen times. This has added significant cost to the program, which Congress and NASA had originally estimated would come in at under $10 billion. That estimate has now exploded to nearly $24 billion and growing.
“But the delays and massive cost overruns are not actually the SLS's biggest problem,” said Marco Cáceres, senior space analyst for the Teal Group Corporation. “The biggest problem for the rocket is that it really doesn't have a convincing reason to exist, at least not for very long.” The rocket is NASA's designated vehicle for launching the three planned Artemis missions to the Moon—two of which would be crewed and the last of which would aim to land U.S. astronauts on the lunar surface by 2025.
Assuming all three Artemis missions are successful, SLS rockets are envisioned to launch a docking mission to a proposed small station ("Lunar Gateway") in orbit around Moon in 2027, followed by annual crewed missions to the lunar surface. “That is an extremely ambitious agenda for a program that has not been managed particularly well and has suffered a long series of technical setbacks and some plain old bad luck,” Cáceres said. “Then there is the costs-related dilemma again which, when viewed from the standpoint an estimated $4.1 billion per launch cost of the rocket look even more daunting than the price of its development.”
“Remember that one of the reasons for Obama administration’s decision to end the Space Shuttle program was that Shuttle missions were considered way too expensive at roughly $500 million per launch. That should provide some hard perspective,” Cáceres noted.
Cáceres believes that SLS is unsustainable, as is the Artemis program, which has been estimated to cost NASA more than $10 billion annually over the next 3-4 years. Together, these two programs would wipe out more than half of NASA's current annual $25.5 billion budget. “Still, a reasonable case might be made for championing SLS and Artemis were there a clear and convincing explanation of why the United States should be so committed to establishing a human presence on the Moon, Cáceres said. “But no such explanation has been forthcoming.”
Cáceres adds, “Reviving the glory years of the Apollo era and beating the Russians, and now more likely the Chinese, to the punch seems rather hollow and boring, particularly in the ‘Age of SpaceX’ in which the vision to colonize Mars is vastly more inspiring, concrete and perhaps even more cost-effective, given that it would be a commercially led venture.”
Teal Group is an aerospace and defense market consultancy based in Fairfax, Virginia USA. It provides competitive intelligence to industries and governments worldwide. Mr. Cáceres is the lead analyst on the World Space Systems Briefing and the Worldwide Mission Model Online.
