Unanimous vote in key risk assessment has moon mission crew barreling toward a new launch date

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — NASA has finished a crucial risk assessment ahead of its upcoming lunar flyby mission, and during a news conference Thursday, the agency revealed a new target launch date and discussed how officials evaluated the dangers the mission’s four-person crew will face.

The agency is now aiming to launch the historic mission, called Artemis II, on April 1 as soon as 6:24 p.m. ET. In the event of a delay, there are six additional windows for lift off next month on April 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 30.

The assessment — known as a Flight Readiness Review, or FRR — took place over two days this week and is a crucial step toward liftoff in which mission managers convene to determine whether the rocket, spacecraft and ground systems are ready for launch.

However, John Honeycutt, the chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, did not share a specific, quantitative risk estimate for this rocket and spacecraft.

Figures that characterize the probability of “Loss of Mission” or “Loss of Crew” are two pieces of data the agency shared with the public in the Space Shuttle era, and similar analyses have been offered for many missions since. Before an uncrewed test flight called Artemis I in 2022, NASA assessed there was a 1 in 125 chance that the Orion spacecraft — the same type of vehicle that will carry the Artemis II crew — would be lost.

“I know we have pursued Loss of Mission, Loss of Crew-type number assessments, but I’m not sure we understand what they mean in reality,” Honeycutt said, explaining such figures typically involve guesswork.

Honeycutt noted that, because Artemis II will mark only the second-ever flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, there isn’t much data to go on in calculating such a figure for this flight.

“We’re probably not 1 in 50 on the mission going exactly like we want to, but we’re probably not 1 in 2 like we were on the first flight,” Honeycutt said of the SLS rocket, which boosts the Orion capsule to orbit. “I think we’re being really careful not to really lay probabilistic numbers on the table for this mission.”

“I wouldn’t actually put a number on it,” added Lori Glaze, NASA’s acting associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.

An “incredible amount of work has gone into preparing for this test flight by thousands of people across our integrated team,” Glaze added.

“We had extremely thorough discussions — very open, transparent,” she said. “We talked a lot about our risk posture and how we’re mitigating those risks.”

Glaze noted that the four Artemis II crewmembers — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — joined the FRR virtually from their home base in Houston, Texas.

“Having them join us in this review really reinforced the importance of having open, honest discussions,” Glaze added.

No dissenting concerns

Glaze said the astronauts tuned in for insight into how mission managers assessed the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft. The heat shield is a crucial piece of hardware designed to protect the crew as their capsule reenters Earth’s atmosphere upon returning from their 10-day, slingshot trip around the moon.

As CNN previously reported, NASA spent more than a year working to undertand why the Orion heat shield did not perform as expected during the 2022 Artemis I test flight, returning home with divots and cracks across the material. Artemis II is flying with a similar heat shield, but the agency has said it plans to mitigate the risks by altering the Orion capsule’s return trajectory — an assessment that some critics have said is inadequate.

Glaze said NASA has internal consensus, however, that the heat shield is safe and Artemis II is ready to fly.

“I think we’ve all agreed that we’ve got a good heat shield,” she said. The astronauts “were listening to make sure that we have that really nailed down,” including details on how the group will stay in touch with mission controllers on the ground during reentry.

Historically, some flight readiness review meetings have been contentious. During the Space Shuttle era, for example, the events could involve tense disagreements between experts.

“A good FRR for the space shuttle could last two or more days with lengthy presentations, probing questions, sometimes acrimonious debate, and finally resolution: fly or stand down and fix,” Wayne Hale, a former NASA Space Shuttle Program Manager and flight director, once recalled.

A NASA spokesperson said this week’s FRR lasted all day Wednesday and concluded Thursday afternoon before the 3 p.m. ET briefing.

“We spent a little bit of quiet time giving people plenty of time to come to the table and share any dissenting concerns, and there were none,” Honeycutt said.

Technical questions

Still, Artemis II mission managers had plenty of technical questions to discuss.

In the lead up to the meeting, the SLS rocket experienced a series of setbacks. Those included issues with liquid hydrogen — a super-chilled propellant that is notorious for leaking — seeping out of the rocket at higher-than-acceptable rates during an initial fueling test. Hydrogen is highly energetic and easy to ignite, posing the risk of an explosion if too much aggregates in one area.

Just as NASA seemed to have its arms around the leaky fuel problem, however, the agency ran into a new issue in late February: Helium wasn’t flowing properly to the upper part of the rocket. Helium is crucial because it’s used to clean out propellant lines and help pressurize fuel tanks.

That issue took possible March liftoff dates off the table and prompted NASA to roll the rocket back off the launchpad for servicing. In fact, the spacecraft is still sitting in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building, which lies about 4 miles away from the launchpad.

The space agency now plans to return the SLS rocket to its launch site on March 19. The trip is a slow-moving process that takes about 10 to 12 hours to complete.

What’s more, the rocket’s initial journey to the launchpad may have been responsible for causing some of the hydrogen leaks, Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, previously revealed during a February 3 news conference.

It’s not yet clear whether those hydrogen issues may reemerge as the SLS moves back into launch position.

The space agency confirmed Thursday, however, that it was able to solve the helium flow issue by fixing a blocked seal within a cable that attaches the rocket to the nearby ground systems.

NASA said it opted not to conduct another wet dress rehearsal — a test in which launch controllers fill the rocket up with fuel and conduct a complete practice run in preparation for launch.

The last wet dress rehearsal, in late February, was successful. But it concluded just before NASA identified the helium flow issue.

Glaze said one reason to forgo another wet dress test is to preserve the fuel tanks: Every time NASA fills them up with propellant, “it takes a little bit of the life out of those tanks.”

She added, “We don’t want to give up any of the days in our April launch window for a wet dress rehearsal.”

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