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NASA has begun work on the integration of its new SLS (Space Launch System) heavy rocket with which the Orion capsule of the Artemis 1 mission will fly into the lunar quarter next year.
The first of 10 pieces of the two SLS booster rockets for NASA’s Artemis I mission was placed on the mobile launcher on November 21, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The engineers used one of five overhead cranes to lift the segment from the VAB’s High Bay 4 to the newly refurbished High Bay 3.
The component is the lower section of the thruster, known as the stern assembly, which houses the system that controls 70% of the steering during the initial lift of the rocket. For several weeks, the other segments will be stacked one by one and completed with the front set, NASA reports.
The recall segments arrived by train at the Florida spaceport in June from the Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility in Utah for final launch preparations. Stacking operations began on November 19 with engineers transporting a segment of reinforcement from the swing, machining and surge structure to the 160-meter-high Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
Each thruster is made up of five segments and will provide 7 million pounds of thrust for take-off from launch pad 39B. Once assembled, each thruster will be about half the length of a football field and together generate more thrust than 14 four-engine commercial jumbo jets. Once stacked, the SLS rocket will be taller than the Statue of Liberty and will have about 15% more takeoff thrust than the Apollo program’s Saturn V rocket, making it the most powerful rocket ever built.
“Stacking the first piece of the SLS rocket on the mobile launcher marks an important milestone for the Artemis program,” said Andrew Shroble, Jacobs Integrated Operations Flow Manager. “It shows that the mission is really taking shape and that it will soon be heading for the launch pad.”
Solid rockets are the first components of the SLS rocket to stack and will help support the remaining pieces of the rocket and the Orion spacecraft. In the coming weeks, workers will use an overhead crane that can hold up to 325 tons (the weight of about 50 elephants), to lift the remaining segments one by one and carefully place them on the 116-meter-high mobile launcher, the structure used to process, assemble and launch the SLS rocket. Cranes are accurate enough to lower an object onto an egg without breaking it.
The first bracing segments to be stacked are the lower sections known as aft assemblies. These house the system that controls 70% of the steering during the initial climb of the rocket. This section includes the stern engine segment and skirt and the nozzle that directs the hot gas exiting the engine. After the other four segments have been stacked, the ends of the impellers are the front assemblies, which include the end cone that serves as the streamlined leading edge of the impellers.
Launched in 2021, Artemis I will be an unmanned test flight of the Orion spacecraft and the SLS rocket as an integrated system prior to manned flights to the Moon. As part of the Artemis program, NASA aims to bring the first woman and the next man to the moon in 2024 and establish sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade. SLS and Orion, along with the Human Landing System and Gateway Station orbiting the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration.
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