Late Saturday evening technicians from Kennedy Space Center in Florida brought the core stage for NASA's second Space Launch System Rocket in position between the two fixed boosters of the vehicle.
Working within the iconic 52-storey vehicle assembly building, soil teams used heavy cranes to first lift the Butterscotch Orange Core podium from the cradle in the Cavernous Transfer-Gangpad of the VAB, the central passage between the four-rocket sample of the building. The cranes then rotated the structure vertically, so that employees could break one of the cranes from the bottom of the rocket.
That left the rocket hanging on a 325-ton top, which would lift him over the mirror in the northeast bay of the building. The Boeing-built core phase weighs approximately 94 tons (85 tons), measures approximately 212 feet (65 meters) long and contains 730,000 liters of cryogenic driving gas at Liftoff. It is the largest element for NASA's Artemis II mission, planned to transport a crew of astronauts around the other side of the moon as soon as next year.
Finally, ground plows had the rocket between the Twin Solid Rocket Boosters of the Space Launch System that were already stacked on a mobile launch platform in High Bay 3, where NASA Space Huttels and Saturn V Rockets assembled for Apollo Lunar Missies.
On Sunday, teams connected in the VAB De Kern phase with each booster at forward and rear load-D attract points. After completing electrical and data connections, engineers will stack a cone-shaped adapter on the core phase, followed by the upper stage of the rocket, another adapter ring and ultimately the Orion spacecraft that will be the home base of the four-headed Artemis II crew for their 10-day trips through Diepepe.
Four RS-25 engines Remaining from the Space Shuttle program from NASA will be the SLS-Kernpass of Stroomvoorzien.
Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
Due to the movements
This will be the first crew of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the South Pole of the Moon and ultimately to build a sustainable human presence on the Moon, with an eye on future expeditions to Mars. The first Lunar Landing of the program is ingested for the Artemis III mission, again with the help of SLS and Orion, but adding a new piece: SpaceX's huge Starship Rocket will be used as a human Lunar Lander. Artemis II will not land, but it will bring people to the neighborhood of the moon for the first time since 1972.
