NASA can't deliver the cargo to ISS, all blame on SpaceX Dragon!

You ever feel like NASA always seems to be in trouble? Well, this time it is. And not only is it with the moon rocket, the agency is now grounded and can't deliver their cargo to the ISS. And they're blaming it on SpaceX's Dragon. So, what's actually going on? Let's find out in today's episode of Great SpaceX. NASA and SpaceX have just delayed Cargo Dragon's CRS-25 space station resupply mission another two weeks after the company narrowed down the cause of the spacecraft's rare leak. Instead of the mission's original June 7th target, which was eventually pushed back to June 10th and then June 28th when SpaceX discovered signs of a possible fuel leak near one of the spacecraft's many Draco thrusters, NASA and SpaceX will now attempt to launch CRS-25 no earlier than July 11th. That makes CRS-25 something exceptionally rare, a SpaceX launch delayed more than a month by an issue discovered just a few days before liftoff. Alongside its growing cadence and record for successful launches, Falcon 9 has quickly become one of the most reliable and on-time rockets currently operating. Once the rocket has been integrated, SpaceX will occasionally run into a day or two of delays caused by minor technical issues or poor weather, but anything more than a few days has become exceptionally rare. The same has generally been true for Dragon and Dragon 2, although Dragon 2 spacecraft are much newer and less experienced than Falcon rockets and do often run into the occasional minor issue. However, it has been years since a Dragon mission was delayed, multiple weeks just a few days before its initial launch target. CRS-25's issues are extraordinarily rare for SpaceX. On June 13th, NASA distributed an update on those issues revealing that SpaceX had narrowed down the cause of the anomalous fuel vapor readings that delayed the launch to a single Draco thruster valve inlet joint. The Dragon spacecraft has 16 Draco maneuvering thrusters, each of which has at least two valve inlet joints for fuel and oxidizer. Dragon's smaller pressure fed Draco thrusters operate at relatively low pressures, but the hypergolic or auto-igniting fuel and oxidizer they burn are extremely uncooperative and corrosive and create tough conditions for valves to live and operate. In general, valves are already a major source of headaches in spaceflight, where the thermal and chemical environments are bipolar and unforgiving in the extreme. The stakes are about as high as they get and basic realities of physics demand that all hardware be as light and minimal as possible. Given Draco's impressive history, with hundreds of thrusters flown on dozens of different orbital Dragon missions since 2010, it's likely that SpaceX will fix the problem without issue and prevent it from happening again. Still, the leak serves as a reminder that making large and complex spacecraft work reliably is an immense challenge. When that spacecraft is meant to be reused, the difficulty is magnified even further. One slight positive did come from the latest delay, however, which is SpaceX's June 17th Starlink launch no longer has to worry about impinging upon a NASA Dragon launch just 11 days later. In fact, while unlikely, SpaceX may even have time for a second Starlink launch from Pad 39A to fill the slight gap CRS-25 has created in Falcon 9's June manifest. Most recently, NASA says it's ready for a fourth attempt to fuel the massive SLS rocket. The space agency plans to call its team of engineers and technicians to their stations on Saturday evening and begin fueling operations on Monday morning, June 20th. Our team is ready to go, said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA's launch director for the Artemis 1 mission. We're really looking forward to getting back to this test and getting into it starting on Saturday evening and certainly looking forward to the tanking operation. Although NASA has completed a lot of its test objectives during the three previous attempts, the most dynamic parts of the wet dress rehearsal test will come in the final hours with a fully fueled vehicle. NASA itself isn't there yet. During the most advanced fueling attempt in April, NASA succeeded in loading 49% of the core stage liquid oxygen fuel tank and 5% of the liquid hydrogen tank. A completed test will require fully loading propellants on both the core stage and the upper stage and then going into an hours-long countdown. On Monday, NASA intends to start fuel loading at 7 a.m. ET and proceed into terminal countdown. At T-33 seconds, the plan is to recycle and enter a second countdown, this time taking the vehicle all the way down to T-10. This should occur sometime on Monday afternoon. NASA officials have said they will not set a launch date for the Artemis 1 mission until the wet dress test is completed and there is at least a preliminary review of the data. During Wednesday's call, NASA's Chief of Exploration Systems Development Jim Free said that August 23rd to September 6th is the earliest window during which the Artemis 1 mission could launch. Such a launch date assumes a timely completion of the wet dress test and finding few, if any, issues that require follow-up work. But this is unlikely to happen. On the other hand, NASA's Office of Inspector General has released the final audit of the agency's effort to build the Mobile Launcher 2, a massive tower meant to facilitate the launch of crewed missions to the lunar surface and it spells bad news for the space agency. According to the report, NASA's contract with tower builder Bechtel has been an absolute disaster. With the agency spending approximately a billion dollars or at least two and a half times more than initially planned, delivery of the tower will also take at least two and a half years longer than initially planned. That means Artemis 4, the program's inaugural crewed mission to the lunar surface, could be set back to the end of 2028, according to an analysis by the office's independent review team. That's a pretty hefty setback, especially considering the ML-2 was meant to be delivered in March of 2023, according to NASA's original contract with Bechtel. It's an unfortunate conundrum that could greatly delay the country's return to the moon. The Trump administration have been selling Congress on the idea of returning astronauts to the moon by 2024 for perspective. But that date has consistently slipped, with costs ballooning to astronomical levels. NASA's moon rocket has been also famously mired in massive budget overruns Now, even the ML-2 tower alone, a platform meant to facilitate the launch of two special configurations of the SLS, Block 1B and 2, capable of sending heavy cargo and astronauts to the lunar surface, is proving to be quite the disaster. According to the report, the delays and budget overruns involved in the development of the tower can be attributed primarily to Bechtel's poor performance on the contract. But NASA is also to blame for awarding the contractor almost half of the $16.8 million in award fees, despite Bechtel's horrendous performance. The inspector general recommends that NASA do its due diligence and make sure cost estimates are accurate and well-established before it enters any new contractual agreements. And award fees should also only be given out only with a well-documented rationale in hand. NASA's in an unfortunate predicament, and the whole world is watching.