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+--- Thread: Article NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket (vehicles) (/thread-19731.html)
NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket (vehicles) - C C - Feb 5, 2026
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-finally-acknowledges-the-elephant-in-the-room-with-the-sls-rocket/
EXCERPTS: . . . Until this week, NASA had largely ignored these concerns, at least in public. However, in a stunning admission, NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, acknowledged the flight-rate issue after Monday’s wet-dress rehearsal test failed to reach a successful conclusion. “The flight rate is the lowest of any NASA-designed vehicle, and that should be a topic of discussion,” he said as part of a longer post about the test on social media.
The reality, which Isaacman knows full well, and which almost everyone else in the industry recognizes, is that the SLS rocket is dead hardware walking. The Trump administration would like to fly the rocket just two more times, culminating in the Artemis III human landing on the Moon. Congress has passed legislation mandating a fourth and fifth launch of the SLS vehicle.
However, one gets the sense that this battle is not yet fully formed, and the outcome will depend on hiccups like Monday’s aborted test; the ongoing performance of the rocket in flight; and how quickly SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle make advancements toward reliability. Both of these private rockets are moving at light speed relative to NASA’s Slow Launch System.
During the news conference, I asked about this low flight rate and the challenge of managing a complex rocket that will never be more than anything but an experimental system. The answer from NASA’s top civil servant, Amit Kshatriya, was eye-opening.
“You know, you’re right, the flight rate—three years is a long time between the first and second,” NASA’s associate administrator said. “It is going to be experimental, because of going to the Moon in this configuration, with the energies we’re dealing with. And every time we do it these are very bespoke components, they’re in many cases made by incredible craftsmen. … It’s the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes, and how it vents, and how it wants to leak is something we have to characterize. And so every time we do it, we’re going to have to do that separately.”
So there you have it. Every SLS rocket is a work of art, every launch campaign an adventure, every mission subject to excessive delays. It’s definitely not ideal... (MORE - missing details)
RE: NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket (vehicles) - Yazata - Feb 11, 2026
Eric Berger tells it like it is!
A big part of the difference between Starship and SLS is that SpaceX intends to build hundreds or even thousands of Starships and to launch Starships several times a day aspirationally, from Starbase's two pads and three pads at Cape Canaveral. While each SLS is hand-crafted and probably will never achieve a flight cadence of more than once a year.
So each SLS launch will probably always be an experimental flight, while Starship aspires to becoming as routine as a commercial airliner flight today. Or at least a Falcon 9 flight. Falcon 9's of various configurations have reached orbit 605 times, out of 608 launches (for a 99.51% success rate) most of those flights with used boosters.