{"id":25079,"date":"2021-02-17T19:03:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T11:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-completes-exploration-upper-stage-cdr-focuses-new-office-on-sls-block-1b-development\/"},"modified":"2021-02-17T19:03:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T11:03:35","slug":"nasa-completes-exploration-upper-stage-cdr-focuses-new-office-on-sls-block-1b-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-completes-exploration-upper-stage-cdr-focuses-new-office-on-sls-block-1b-development\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA completes Exploration Upper Stage CDR, focuses new office on SLS Block 1B development"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Space Launch System (SLS) Program and prime contractor Boeing have a new framework in place to finish development of the next version of the new launch vehicle, called Block 1B. The biggest addition to the Block 1B SLS vehicle will be the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), which completed its Critical Design Review (CDR) on December 18.<\/p>\n

The CDR milestone indicates the design of the larger, higher performance upper stage is mature enough to begin construction and assembly of the test and flight articles needed for first flight certification while incorporating lessons learned while starting Core Stage production, including the 2020 creation of a separate Block 1B\/EUS Development Office within the program to advance Block 1B to its first flight while much of the rest of the workforce focuses on efforts to get the initial SLS Block 1 vehicle off the ground for the first time on Artemis 1.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

New upper stage Critical Design Review completed in December<\/p>\n

The Critical Design Review milestone for the new, in-house upper stage for SLS was a series of reviews that culminated in a final board on December 18. \u201cCDR is a big deal, so it\u2019s not just a single meeting,\u201d Steven Wofford, manager of NASA\u2019s new Block 1B\/Exploration Upper Stage Development Office, said. \u201cCDR is really more kind of a campaign, if you want to look at it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The EUS is the major upgrade from the SLS Block 1 vehicle that will fly the program\u2019s first three launches. On the SLS Block 1B vehicle, the EUS will replace the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), which is closely derived from the 5-meter diameter upper stage of United Launch Alliance\u2019s (ULA) Delta IV launch vehicle.<\/p>\n

At its widest, the larger EUS is the same 8.4-meter diameter as the SLS Core Stage, uses the same hydrogen-oxygen commodities for its four Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engines as the Core Stage uses for its four RS-25 engines, and will increase the SLS\u2019s overall payload performance from approximately 27 metric tons to 38 metric tons when inserting the Orion spacecraft on a trans-lunar trajectory.<\/p>\n

For the EUS\u2019s CDR, \u201cThe preparation and the review [took] place over a series of several months,\u201d Wofford explained. \u201cSo we really worked most of calendar year 2020 getting ready for that December 18th culmination of the CDR.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After a redesign that started in 2018 and ran through 2019, the stage and its related hardware were refined ahead of CDR by the SLS Program and EUS prime contractor Boeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat goes into that is maturing the design, so when you mature the design you document it in various drawings and products and specs and procedures and all of that,\u201d Wofford said. \u201cBoeing uses what they call a \u2018layout process\u2019 to define the design and its proprietary process. Think of a layout as a superset of a drawing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a layout encompasses a part of the stage design, and it has everything you need to flesh out that part of the design in terms of drawings and manufacturing capabilities and tooling and supplier relationships and analyses and all that sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CDR campaign began several weeks before the final sign off. \u201cSome weeks before the December review, we [had] what we [called] a \u2018data drop,\u2019 and that [was] where Boeing put the completed work out there in a repository open and available for NASA to review and critique,\u201d Wofford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstand that the NASA people had been involved, hand in glove, with the Boeing folks all along towards this, so it wasn\u2019t a big surprise that they\u2019d been waiting for this thing to get dropped in this data drop. We\u2019d been working really closely with them all throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Credit: NASA.<\/p>\n

(Photo Caption: Configurations of the SLS launch vehicle under development or under recent development. The SLS Block 1 Crew configuration (far left), labeled \u201cSLS Block 1,\u201d is now planned to fly the first three SLS launches of the Artemis 1, 2, and 3 missions. The SLS Block 1B Crew and Cargo configurations (third and fourth from left) will fly with the in-house Exploration Upper Stage beginning with Artemis 4. The SLS Block 1 Cargo configuration was in development to fly the Europa Clipper, but those plans were recently cancelled by NASA in favor of a commercial launch vehicle.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was an official data drop some weeks before the CDR, and the reviewers both from my team and outside reviewers that we invited in [went] through all of those products. And then they generated a series of questions and comments and review item discrepancies, and all of that was brought to the board on December 18th,\u201d Wofford added.<\/p>\n

With completion of the CDR, NASA and Boeing will now work to begin building the hardware that will support the first EUS flight. In addition to the working flight article, Boeing will construct and assemble a structural test article (STA) at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans to support design certification for first flight.<\/p>\n

See Also<\/h4>\n