Big news: Artemis I now one piece away from launch
One more piece and NASA will have all the parts needed for the biggest rocket to ever blast off from Earth.
Kennedy Space Center got its hands on the second to last piece of hardware for Space Launch System rocket to be used on the Artemis I mission to moon. The launch vehicle stage adapter made its way to Kennedy aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge this week and was transported on Thursday into the Vehicle Assembly Building.
The adapter fits on top of the massive core stage of SLS, the one piece that has yet to arrive to KSC, to connect it to the upper stage, and also acts as protection for the upper stage’s engine, which will be what propels the Orion spacecraft to the moon.
Artemis I is an uncrewed mission, but will prove out NASA’s ability to return humans to the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. NASA is still aiming for Artemis I by next year. Artemis II will be crewed but not land on the moon. Artemis III will return humans to the moon with that mission planned for 2024, including the first woman on the moon.
“The launch vehicle stage adapter arriving to Kennedy is significant because we have almost all of the pieces of the rocket here as we get closer to launch,” said Allison Mjoen, operations project engineer with the Exploration Ground Systems program in a NASA press release. “We have moved from planning into implementation, and soon the rocket will begin taking shape with stacking operations.”
The Orion capsule is already on site as well as the solid rocket boosters that will provide the majority of the SLS’s potential 8.8 million pounds of thrust.
The 212-foot-tall core stage, which features four refurbished RL-25 engines from the space shuttle program, remains at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for its final testing, including a hot fire of those engines on a full burn, which core stage primary contractor Boeing has stated it hopes to get done in October.
At that point, NASA’s Pegasus barge will bring the core stage to Kennedy and all the parts will be put together in the VAB.
When put together on the mobile launcher, SLS will roll out to Launch Pad 39-B.
NASA has been working with contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman among others on SLS since its announcement in 2011 with multiple delays in the program that initially sought to launch its first rocket by 2018.
With the first SLS rocket nearly complete though, the hardware for successive Artemis missions are already well under way at facilities across the U.S., although the costs of SLS have ballooned over initial budgets by billions of dollars, according to NASA’s inspector general.