NASA's Exploration Ground Systems@NASAGroundSysAlright, alright, alright ➡️On Thursday, Exploration Ground Systems teams transported the right aft assembly for the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters to the Vehicle Assembly Building and placed it next to the left aft assembly atop mobile launcher 1.To lift and stack the aft assemblies, teams use a specialized lifting beam with leveling links, which serves as an adapter to interface between the crane and hardware, ensuring perfect configuration. Once in High Bay 3, teams aligned the four aft skirt shoes with the mobile launcher’s vehicle support posts, completing transfer of the aft assemblies.
ESM-4 gets its first helium tank !The US-European #Orion mission - led by @esa and @NASA - enabling astronauts to live and work in the first ever lunar space station has hit an important milestone🎉 The first helium tank has just been installed on the spacecraft! Next step: Reaction Control Thrusters integration 🔜
In this image from Dec. 11, 2024, the 212-foot-tall SLS (Space Launch System) core stage is lowered into High Bay 2 at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the move to High Bay 2, NASA and Boeing technicians now have 360-degree access to the core stage both internally and externally.
Dec 19, 2024 The 212-foot-tall SLS (Space Launch System) core stage for NASA Artemis II is seen being moved from a horizontal position to a vertical position in High Bay 2 at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the move to High Bay 2, NASA and Boeing technicians now have 360-degree access to the core stage both internally and externally.
12-month clock started with the stacking of the left aft center segment on top of the left aft segment yesterday:
NASA provided a late-year Artemis update at a Kennedy Space Center media event this past week and in this video, I'll review what we saw and heard. The space agency recently made the decision to fly Artemis II with the existing base heatshield on the Orion spacecraft, while delaying the launch date until April 2026.That decision to continue was made only a couple of weeks ago, and so NASA still has some work to do to figure out the roadmap from the end of this year until Artemis II is ready to fly. Orion is the critical path for the launch date and with plans in flux, there wasn't much news to share about that yet.Coupled with few updates or events throughout 2024, the timing and remaining uncertainty gave the event a weird vibe. There wasn't much news and with the Artemis II Orion and SLS being actively worked on, we saw more Artemis III and IV Orion hardware than anything else. Most of the uncertainty about the future of Artemis remains heading into 2025, with the possibility that Elon Musk and the incoming Trump administration have big changes planned when they take over in a month. That's why it felt a little like the media event was more about that uncertainty about the political future.
Quote from: DaveS on 12/20/2024 02:18 pm12-month clock started with the stacking of the left aft center segment on top of the left aft segment yesterday:NASA's process is clearly broken. They know for sure that they will not launch before April 2026, but they just performed an operation that requires a launch before January 2026, apparently without announcing any sort of formal extension of the clock. Is one part of NASA trying to force an out-of-process after-the-fact extension, or do these safety and engineering rules just not matter? Why not just wait until June or so before doing the stack that stared the clock?
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 12/20/2024 02:50 pmQuote from: DaveS on 12/20/2024 02:18 pm12-month clock started with the stacking of the left aft center segment on top of the left aft segment yesterday:NASA's process is clearly broken. They know for sure that they will not launch before April 2026, but they just performed an operation that requires a launch before January 2026, apparently without announcing any sort of formal extension of the clock. Is one part of NASA trying to force an out-of-process after-the-fact extension, or do these safety and engineering rules just not matter? Why not just wait until June or so before doing the stack that stared the clock?The 12-month clock has been overtaken by events and analysis. It is no longer relevant. There are techs being paid good money sitting around on their hands. better to take advantage of past accepted analyses and put them to work getting ahead of the game. Building up schedule pad without increasing risk is a good thing.
Quote from: The Phantom on 01/04/2025 05:46 pmQuote from: DanClemmensen on 12/20/2024 02:50 pmQuote from: DaveS on 12/20/2024 02:18 pm12-month clock started with the stacking of the left aft center segment on top of the left aft segment yesterday:NASA's process is clearly broken. They know for sure that they will not launch before April 2026, but they just performed an operation that requires a launch before January 2026, apparently without announcing any sort of formal extension of the clock. Is one part of NASA trying to force an out-of-process after-the-fact extension, or do these safety and engineering rules just not matter? Why not just wait until June or so before doing the stack that stared the clock?The 12-month clock has been overtaken by events and analysis. It is no longer relevant. There are techs being paid good money sitting around on their hands. better to take advantage of past accepted analyses and put them to work getting ahead of the game. Building up schedule pad without increasing risk is a good thing.Fine. Why did NASA explicitly refer to the one-year clock at the press briefing? Why have they not formally announced that there is no longer a one-year clock, and there is now formally a two-year clock, or whatever the new analyses have shown?
Last week, Exploration Ground Systems teams at @NASAKennedy stacked the left aft center segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for @NASAArtemis II 🚀The two solid rocket boosters provide more than 75% of the rocket’s thrust during the first two minutes of flight. Each modified booster is 177 feet tall, 12 feet in diameter, weighs 1.6 million pounds, and produces a maximum of 3.6 million pounds of thrust during launch.
New year, new segment stacked 🗓️Earlier this week, teams with Exploration Ground Systems stacked the right aft center segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission. Each booster is made up of five fueled segments and a forward assembly, or nose cone, and weighs 1.6 million pounds. Both boosters now stand one aft assembly and one segment tall on mobile launcher 1 in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at @NASAKennedy.Read more about the stacking process here: https://go.nasa.gov/4jc9R2p
Yesterday, teams with Exploration Ground Systems transported the forward assemblies of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission. Each assembly consists of three parts: a forward skirt which houses avionics, a frustum which houses motors that separate the boosters from the core stage during flight, and a nose cone which serves as the aerodynamic fairing for the booster.Read more about the solid rocket boosters here: https://go.nasa.gov/4gXsrde
The @NASA worm wiggled its way onto mobile launcher 1 🪱Earlier this week, teams with Exploration Ground Systems at @NASAKennedy stacked the right center center segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission. This is the fifth of 10 fueled segments, or motor segments, teams have stacked on mobile launcher 1.
This next segment is brought to you by Exploration Ground Systems🎙️Earlier this week, teams stacked the right forward center segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission. Now, more than half of the motor segments are stacked on mobile launcher 1 in the Vehicle Assembly Building at @NASAKennedy. Once complete, the boosters will stand 17 stories tall.
Raising the roof! 🏘️Before stacking each segment, teams attach a joint roof enclosure. When the new segment is lowered over an already-stacked segment, teams will unroll the roof material to create a tent around the joining segments. This creates a clean room and temperature-controlled environment for the hard mate portion of the stacking process, when the segments are pinned together.
Say this quickly three times: Ground Systems superstars stack seventh segment swiftlyOver the weekend, teams lifted the left center center segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission into High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building. This is the seventh of 10 motor segments stacked on mobile launcher 1 at @NASAKennedy.
Up (and over) next is the left forward center segment!Last week, teams lifted another @NASA_SLS solid rocket booster segment up in the Vehicle Assembly Building transfer aisle and over onto mobile launcher 1 in High Bay 3. To complete booster stacking for the @NASAArtemis II mission, teams will lift two more motor segments and two cone-shaped forward assemblies.
Last week, teams with Exploration Ground Systems stacked the left forward segment of the @NASA_SLS solid rocket boosters onto mobile launcher 1 in the Vehicle Assembly Building. This is the ninth of 10 motor segments to be stacked for the @NASAArtemis II mission.
Time stamps00:58 Artemis II stacking continues, with the SLS Boosters almost complete01:52 Right-hand forward segment is the last of ten to be stacked, RPSF now empty03:37 The forward assemblies will top out the left and right boosters
