{"id":11715,"date":"2021-04-27T22:58:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T14:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-barge-delivers-first-sls-core-stage-to-kennedy-space-center\/"},"modified":"2021-04-27T22:58:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T14:58:49","slug":"nasa-barge-delivers-first-sls-core-stage-to-kennedy-space-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-barge-delivers-first-sls-core-stage-to-kennedy-space-center\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA barge delivers first SLS core stage to Kennedy Space Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
NASA\u2019s Pegasus barge arrives in the Turn Basin at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday evening. Credit: Steven Young \/ Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The core stage of NASA\u2019s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday evening aboard a specially-built barge, completing a voyage by sea from a test site in Mississippi to begin final preparations for the first flight of NASA\u2019s Artemis Moon program.<\/p>\n

The 310-foot-long (94.4-meter) transport vessel completed a nearly five-day trip from NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, delivering the SLS core stage for the Artemis 1 lunar test flight to Florida\u2019s Space Coast after an eight-minute test firing of the rocket\u2019s four main engines March 18.<\/p>\n

Engineers and technicians at Kennedy will ready the rocket to launch an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a multi-week test flight around the Moon. If the test flight goes well, the next SLS\/Orion mission \u2014 Artemis 2 \u2014 will carry three NASA astronauts and a Canadian crew member on the first human mission to lunar distances since the Apollo program.<\/p>\n

Future Artemis missions will land astronauts near the Moon\u2019s south pole.<\/p>\n

Under tow, the Pegasus barge arrived at Port Canaveral, transferred through locks, and then sailed up the Banana River and followed waterways to the Turn Basin at Kennedy, near the spaceport\u2019s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. The barge docked there just before sunset Wednesday.<\/p>\n

NASA previously used the Pegasus barge to transport the giant orange fuel tanks used by the space shuttle. The external tank was built at NASA\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the same location where Boeing manufactures SLS core stages.<\/p>\n

The space agency lengthened the Pegasus barge by 50 feet (15 meters) to accommodate the longer SLS core stage. The barge will transport future Artemis Moon rockets directly from the factory at Michoud to the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

Ground teams at Kennedy plan to unload the 212-foot-long (64.6-meter) core stage before sunrise Thursday and wheel it into the Vehicle Assembly Building on a transport cradle. The rocket measures 27.6 feet (8.4 meters) in diameter, the same width as the shuttle external fuel tank.<\/p>\n

Officials at Kennedy are eager to start working with the core stage. The two 177-foot-tall (54-meter) solid rocket boosters for the first SLS test flight, supplied by Northrop Grumman, are fully stacked on the rocket\u2019s mobile launch platform in High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team has been very excited to finally get the real hardware in our hands,\u201d said Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager for Kennedy\u2019s exploration ground systems program. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen drawings. We\u2019ve seen PowerPoints for the last many years, and to see the real hardware, it really gives everybody kind of a jolt of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lanham said the core stage is the \u201cnext big piece of the puzzle.\u201d All other components of the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission are already delivered to Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart one is getting these boosters stacked, and getting Orion prepared, and we\u2019re working that,\u201d Lanham said in an interview last month. \u201cBut now, with the core stage, that makes the big boosters dwarfed because now you\u2019ve got a 212-foot stage that\u2019s coming. That\u2019s going to to re-energize us as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can really start saying, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going to get there. We\u2019re going to launch this rocket,\u2019\u201d Lanham said.<\/p>\n

The core stage will enter the south door of the VAB and remain in the transfer aisle \u2014 the cavernous passageway in between the rocket assembly bays \u2014 for several weeks of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minute that barge shows up out here at the Turn Basin, we\u2019re ready to go,\u201d Lanham said last month. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to take it off the barge, we\u2019ve got to bring it into the low bay up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Technicians will work on the rocket\u2019s thermal protection system foam and begin installing pyrotechnic charges for the core stage\u2019s range safety destruct system. Then ground crews aim to be ready by mid-May to rotate the rocket vertical and lift it by crane into High Bay 3. The crane operator will carefully lower the core stage in between the two SLS solid rocket boosters.<\/p>\n

Workers will connect the core stage with each booster with braces at forward and aft attach points. Next will be stacking of the SLS upper stage, derived from the second stage used on United Launch Alliance\u2019s Delta 4-Heavy rocket, and an adapter that will support the Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The rocket will be crowned with a mass model of the Orion spacecraft for structural resonance testing of the fully-stacked launch vehicle. Once that is complete, teams will move the real Orion spacecraft \u2014 already integrated with its launch abort system \u2014 to the VAB for attachment to the top of the Space Launch System.<\/p>\n

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The SLS core stage is lowered horizontal at the B-2 test stand at the Stennis Space Center earlier this month for loading into NASA\u2019s Pegasus barge. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The fully-assembled Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft will stand 322 feet (98 meters) tall. During launch, the rocket\u2019s four RS-25 engines and twin solid rocket boosters will generate 8.8 million pounds of thrust. It can send about 59,500 pounds (27 metric tons) of mass to the Moon, more than any rocket operating today.<\/p>\n

NASA plans to roll the Space Launch System out of the Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time as soon as August \u2014 but more likely in the fall \u2014 to travel to pad 39B for a countdown rehearsal. The launch team will load super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants into the rocket and practice countdown procedures.<\/p>\n

After that is done, the rocket will return to the VAB for final checkouts and preparations, then will roll out to pad 39B again for launch.<\/p>\n

Steve Jurczyk, NASA\u2019s acting administrator, said Tuesday that the agency still hopes to launch the Artemis 1 test flight by the end of 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe schedule for Artemis 1 will be really challenging,\u201d Jurczyk said in a webinar hosted by the Space Transportation Association. \u201cIf things go really, really well \u2026 we have a change to launch by the end of the calendar year. But this is the first-time flow of a vehicle at KSC. We\u2019ll undoubtedly encounter challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any major issues over the next few months would likely push the Artemis 1 launch into 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of schedule reserves against launching by the end of the calendar year,\u201d Jurczyk said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Pegasus barge arrives in the Turn Basin at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday evening. Credit: Steven Young \/ Spaceflight Now The core stage of NASA\u2019s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday evening aboard a specially-built barge, completing a voyage by sea from a test site in […]<\/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":[864,304,1700,670,1545,428,25,1753],"class_list":["post-11715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerojet-rocketdyne","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-1","tag-boeing","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-launch","tag-mississippi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715"}],"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=11715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}