Like a high-priced athlete determined to rise from the developmental league, NASA's first Space Launch System rocket is starting to look formidable in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same building where the space shuttles and Apollo rockets were once readied for launch. In June, after lowering the SLS core stage between its two solid rocket boosters and bolting them together, technicians from NASA and its contractor Jacobs turned to the finer points of preparing the expendable rocket for the design's uncrewed debut no earlier than Nov. 22 for the Artemis lunar program. The conical Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter was stacked on top of the core stage to be followed by the liquid-hydrogen-fueled Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, whose single engine must propel Orion and its solar panel-equipped service module on a flyby of the moon to within 100 kilometers of the surface and then, with the aid of lunar gravity, out to a distance of 70,000 kilometers beyond the moon. Next will come the Orion Stage Adapter, an aluminum ring fitted with a composite diaphragm to prevent hydrogen gas from the upper stage from building up beneath the European-supplied service module and Orion crew module. Those will be stacked last and topped with the Launch Abort System motors, bringing the height to 98 meters. The 26-day Artemis 1 mission will end with the Orion crew capsule splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, as though it were bringing astronauts home from the moon.
展开▼
