Rockets and Flight Termination Systems and Life

Six days (maybe).

This is a story about rockets and flight termination systems, but it’s also about life, and living it.

SLS could potentially launch on Tuesday, if…

…if it passes testing today to make sure that all the work over the last couple of weeks to address the issues experienced in the recent scrubs did all the things it was supposed, and

…if Space Force gives NASA permission to launch the rocket without recharging the battery for the flight termination system, which gives them the ability to blow up the rocket if something goes wrong.

The test should be done by early afternoon; hopefully a decision on the waiver will come not long afterwards. Fingers crossed. By the time you’re reading this, you may already know how it all turned out.

It’s all, for me, a bit reminiscent of a shuttle launch I went to over 11 years ago.

STS-133 was the third-from-last flight of the Space Shuttle; Discovery was delivering supplies, a robot and a storage module to the International Space Station.

It may have been the only launch I traveled to see twice; I went down in late 2010, but there were issues significant enough that it delayed longer than the week I could stay in Florida. (Like I said, echoes of recent events.)

Three months later, I was in Florida again. The first time I went down, it had never gotten close; the launch attempts were scrubbed before we even got to the viewing area.

This time, it was close. The countdown was at minutes from launch when an unexpected hold was announced.

There was an issue with range safety. That flight termination system that blows up the rocket if something goes wrong? Range safety is responsible for blowing the rocket up. A monitor wasn’t working, so they wouldn’t know if they should blow the rocket up.

The launch opportunity was nearing an end, rapidly. It looked bad.

On the orbiter, the crew continued to prepare for launch. From what they were hearing, it was unlikely they were going to space that day.

I can’t imagine how frustrating it must have been, not only to be on the verge of a scrub, but for that to be the reason. You’re not going to space, and the reason you’re not going to is because the range wouldn’t know whether to kill you. Had it been me, I’d have happily suggested a compromise where they just agree it’s OK not to kill us, and we go to space.

But it wasn’t me. It was a crew of real astronauts, doing real astronaut things. They’re on the orbiter, going through the motions of preparing for a launch they’re hearing is next to impossible.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I heard it came down to seconds. If it had taken seconds longer to resolve the issue, they would have stayed on the ground. Again. But it didn’t. They left Earth on a column of fire on their way to the International Space Station.

Two months later, they were at Marshall Space Flight Center for their post-mission visit. They did their briefing in Morris Auditorium, and when they opened it up for questions, I had to ask — what was it like sitting in the crew cabin of the orbiter, going through the steps of preparing for a launch that almost certainly wasn’t coming? Was it discouraging or frustrating?

In a word, no. They were too busy doing what they needed to get ready, regardless of what was going on somewhere else.

As one of the astronauts, Alvin Drew put it –

The worst thing wouldn’t be to be ready and not be able to go. The worst thing would be to able to go, and not be ready.

Not bad advice, for more than just space shuttles.