Booster test lights up desert
SLS progress ongoing for NASA missions
While the first Artemis mission has yet to launch, NASA and partner Northrop Grumman are already testing new boosters for future launches capable of sending humans to deep space including Mars.
The test of the Flight Support Booster 1 at Northrop Grumman’s facility at Promontory, Utah on Wednesday lasted for two minutes, burning through propellant to create 3.6 million pounds of thrust. While booster tests have been performed since 2010 at the site, this new test’s main purpose was to try out propellant materials from new sources.
The company is one of many working with NASA on the Space Launch System with Boeing acting as primary contractor on the SLS core stage, LockheedMartin on the Orion capsule that will actually carry astronauts and Northrop Grumman on the external boosters that will provide the majority of thrust needed for the massive SLS rocket to break away from Earth’s atmosphere.
“The SLS flight support booster firing is a crucial part of sustaining missions to the moon,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “NASA’s goal is to take what we learn living and working on the moon and use it to send humans on the first missions to Mars.”
For the first eight Artemis missions, NASA will use two of the side boosters along with the Boeing-built core stage to combine for 8.8 million pounds of thrust. That would make SLS the biggest rocket ever launched from Earth.
Artemis I, an uncrewed flight to the moon, is targeting November 2021 with a crewed mission around the moon on Artemis II in 2023 followed by Artemis III that aims to land the first woman on the moon by 2024.
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Boeing: The core stage to be used on Artemis I remains at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi going through a series of eight tests leading up to a planned October full hotfire launch simulation that will see all four of its RS-25 engines, converted from former space shuttle engines, light up to test its 2 million pounds of thrust in an eight-minute burn. NASA and Boeing began the fifth of its Green Run test campaigns this week. Once complete, the core stage will make its way by the Pegasus barge to Kennedy Space Center where it will be assembled with the boosters and Orion capsule as well as the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage.
While the initial core stage took many more years to develop than planned, the core stages for the Artemis II and III missions are already in the works with expected completions well ahead of the 2023 and 2024 t a rg e t launch dates. Production welding is finished on the second mission core stage and manufacturing has begun for the third at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
Boeing has also begun production on the planned Exploration Upper Stage, currently nearing final design review, which will be needed for Artemis II and III to give the power needed to send both crew and cargo in one launch to its lunar destination.
Lockheed Martin: The Orion capsule for Artemis I is flight ready after completing NASA’s System Acceptance and Design Certification Review. The review certified the vehicle’s technical integrity and it’s ready to be integrated with the fully stacked SLS once the core stage arrives to Kennedy.
In August, the company working with manufacturer AMRO Fa b r i c a t i n g Corp. knocked out the first part of the Artemis III Orion capsule, a cone panel that features the openings for the windows that will provide the view for astronauts on their way to the moon. It was sent to the Michoud Assembly Facility where it will eventually form into the Orion pressure vessel, which will then make its way to KSC for further assembly. The Artemis II Orion capsule is already at Kennedy.
“It’s truly exciting to have the first piece of the Artemis III Orion spacecraft completed at AMRO that will enable American astronauts to build a sustainable presence on the lunar surface,” said acting Orion Program Manager Howard Hu.