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NASA ’s new mega moonshine rocket , the Space Launch System ( SLS ) , is getting one step nigher to reaching for the headliner Wednesday ( April 6 ) by completing what ’s bed asa wet dress rehearsal , in which the agency load the vehicle ’s tanks with cryogenic fuel and imitation countdown in preparation for liftoff .
While NASA broadcasts springy video of the examination on its website , many fundamental details about the result were kept secret , ostensibly for reasons having to do with national security . But do most of these details really necessitate to be top hush-hush ? Here ’s what we know about the federal agency ’s determination to be so clandestine , and why not everybody is buying their stated rationale .
Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS)_NASA/Glenn Benson
What is a wet dress rehearsal?
In prediction of lighting up itsgigantic Modern launch fomite , which when capped by the Orion gang vehicle stands 322 feet ( 98 meters ) tall , gamy than the Statue of Liberty , NASA needs to quiz all of the SLS ’s various portion . During the uncrewed blotto garb rehearsal , the agency loads up the rocket ’s armoured combat vehicle with supercooled liquified hydrogen and melted O — which when combined produce a powerful thrust to air the fomite into space — and practice various scenario in preparation for liftoff .
" The psychometric test runs about two days foresighted and emulates our launching countdown , " say Charlie Blackwell - Thompson during a pressure briefing on Tuesday , March 29 . Blackwell - Thompson is the launch director of NASA’sArtemisprogram , which train to eventually put down the first womanhood and first mortal of color onthe moonshine .
engine driver supervise temperatures and insistency in the tanks during the dry run , taking data point the whole time that will help them once the rocket is quick for its unveiling flight . They also commit going through several unlike countdown sequences , once to triiodothyronine - minus 1 minute and 30 seconds , a second clock time down to 33 mo before launching , and finally all the way down to T - minus 10 seconds before launch .
These admit launching controllers to feign various situations in which a launch may have to be canceled — or " scrubbed " — due to a technical or weather - have-to doe with issue , officials said during the March 29 briefing .
Why were key facts kept secret?
While NASA shared certain milestones about the slopped garb dry run on societal medium , the agency was prohibit from discussing every detail due to concerns over International Traffic in Arms Regulations ( ITAR ) , Tom Whitmeyer , the way ’s associate executive for common geographic expedition systems ontogeny , tell reporters during the press briefing .
ITAR is a regulatory government that restricts the sharing of information about weapons and engineering science in way that may be harmful to U.S. interior security measures or alien insurance , according to the U.S. Department of State .
" We ’re really super sensitive to cryogenic launch vehicles that are of this size of it and capableness , " Whitmeyer state reporters . " They are very analogous to ballistic - eccentric capability that other countries are very concerned in . "
In peculiar , uncongenial foreign countries might wish to get as much information as possible about things like " timing , sequence , flowing rates , temperatures , " he bring . " Anything that would help them or other common people that could be used to do like things , " think building gigantic and potentially deadly missiles .
The complex interactions require in loading up both the SLS ’s core rocket stagecoach and its upper stage at the same sentence were a particular concern , Whitmeyer said . " How long it take to do certain tasks — that ’s count to be crucial entropy by other countries , " he impart . " So we have to be thrifty when we share data , especially for the first time . "
What are people saying about the concerns?
This is a distinctive exercise . NASA was forthcoming with elaborate technical info on their programs back in the day . And the US did not somehow drop off its lead in engineering as a resultant ! https://t.co/FqCko8uNlCMarch 29 , 2022
The motivation to keep everything under wrapper did n’t sit well with some experts . " Sigh . ITAR has been the apology for so much ridiculousness over the years,“tweeted astronomer Jonathan McDowellof the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , who follows space launches closely .
McDowell shareda detailed timeline that was present to reporters in 1992 in anticipation of the launch of the infinite bird Endeavor , suggest NASA ’s current skittishness with compliments to national security is a reasonably recent phenomenon .
newsperson Michael Baylor , who puzzle out for NASASpaceflight.com , which focuses on place - come to intelligence , had even harsh Word . " I am meritless , but this excuse is full BS . It is industriousness criterion to beam the basal countdown loop . Pretty much all of the U.S. launch provider do it , and NASA did it during Shuttle . If you are disquieted about ITAR , you make the callout on a different loop,“he tweeted .
Cryogenic fuel are not generally used much in ballistic projectile system , Baylor added . This is probably due to the fact that sustain fuel at supercooled temperatures for a long period of time is unmanageable and expensive , meaning that many body politic have empty missiles that use such fuel , consort to a internet site maintained by the Federation of American Scientists .
Now that the pie-eyed wearing apparel rehearsal is over , it ’s possible additional data will be shared during a post - test media teleconference on April 5 , and NASA should be more approaching during the upcoming launch of the Artemis 1 mission , expected this summertime , Whitmeyer say . " We ’re doing everything we can to provide as much information as potential . "
in the first place issue on Live Science .
