{"id":10063,"date":"2024-07-24T18:42:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T10:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-prepares-to-roll-artemis-2-core-stage-to-the-vehicle-assembly-building\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T18:42:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T10:42:39","slug":"nasa-prepares-to-roll-artemis-2-core-stage-to-the-vehicle-assembly-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-prepares-to-roll-artemis-2-core-stage-to-the-vehicle-assembly-building\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA prepares to roll Artemis 2 core stage to the Vehicle Assembly Building"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_66798\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66798\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66798\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723-core-stage-arrives-at-KSC-small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723-core-stage-arrives-at-KSC-small.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723-core-stage-arrives-at-KSC-small-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723-core-stage-arrives-at-KSC-small-678x452.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723-core-stage-arrives-at-KSC-small-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66798\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA\u2019s Pegasus barge, carrying the agency\u2019s massive SLS (Space Launch System) core stage, arrives at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 turn basin wharf in Florida on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, after journeying from the agency\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The core stage is the next piece of Artemis hardware to arrive at the spaceport and will be offloaded and moved to NASA Kennedy\u2019s Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be prepared for integration ahead of the Artemis II launch. Image: NASA\/Kim Shiflett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NASA\u2019s took another important step in its Artemis program, designed to return humans to the Moon in preparation for missions to Mars. On Tuesday, the 212-foot-long Space launch System (SLS) core stage, nestled inside NASA\u2019s massive Pegasus barge, completed its week-long voyage from eastern Louisiana to Florida.<\/p>\n<p>It is part of the second SLS rocket that will support the Artemis 2 mission to the Moon, marking the first crewed flight of the vehicle. On Wednesday, teams from Jacobs, the prime contractor for NASA\u2019s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program at the Kennedy Space Center, will unpack the core stage and slowly roll it into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).<\/p>\n<p>Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the process beginning at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 UTC).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oBDTIa8tKlE\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Artemis 2 mission will feature four crew members: three NASA astronauts and a Canadian Space Agency astronaut. They will fly a roughly eight-day mission around the Moon and back with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.<\/p>\n<p>The core stage is powered by four RS-25 engines manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris company, and provides about 512,000 pounds of thrust or about 25 percent of the total thrust needed at liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>Its propellant tanks store a combined 733,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen when fully fueled. Boeing is the prime contractor for the core stage, which is assembled at the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana.<\/p>\n<p>The arrival of the Boeing-built core stage is just one of the items in flow for the mission, which is targeting launch no earlier than September 2025. Out at Launch Complex 39B, where the SLS rocket will liftoff, EGS teams are completing testing work on the Mobile Launcher, the launch tower that allows for crew ingress, engine sound suppression and support for the rocket\u2019s various systems in the lead up to launch.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Ramsey, the Artemis 2 mission manager, said they have about a month of work left on the ML before it returns to the VAB. At that point they will begin assembling the SLS rocket, which will begin with the pair of solid rocket boosters that attach to either side of the core stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll stack the aft skirts on with the aft assemblies and then we\u2019ll go right, left, right left, all the way up, five segments on each side. And then, put the core in and start doing integrated testing of that,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cAnd then eventually, we\u2019ll get the upper stage in, do testing there and then the Orion spacecraft. Lot of testing between now and September of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66799\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66799\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66799\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723_SLS_SRB_segments.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723_SLS_SRB_segments.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723_SLS_SRB_segments-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723_SLS_SRB_segments-678x381.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240723_SLS_SRB_segments-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66799\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Segments of the Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket boosters that will support the Artemis 2 mission are stored in a facility near the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center. Image: Will Robinson-Smith\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Elsewhere at KSC, at a facility called the Rotating, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF), Jacobs is working with Northrop Grumman to process the solid rocket boosters. They\u2019re manufactured and tested in Utah before being brought by train out to KSC.<\/p>\n<p>Doug Hurley, former NASA astronaut and current Senior Vice President of Business Development Northrop Grumman in its Propulsion Systems department, said they\u2019re making great progress towards future Artemis missions for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything\u2019s done through Artemis 4 right now. Now, it\u2019s just the case of waiting when NASA needs the booster components for [Artemis] 3, we\u2019ll ship those and for [Artemis] 4, we\u2019ll ship those. And I think folks have already started work on Artemis 5 and casting the propellant for that,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly extremely excited and proud to be part of the program and doing our part to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA\u2019s Pegasus barge, carrying the agency\u2019s massive SLS (Space Launch System) core stage, arrives at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 turn basin wharf in Florida on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, after journeying from the agency\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The core stage is the next piece of Artemis hardware to arrive at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[670,1336,1337,1338,190,787,1339],"class_list":["post-10063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-boeing","tag-core-stage","tag-exploration-ground-systems","tag-jacobs","tag-nasa","tag-space-launch-system","tag-yt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}