NASA joins two major Artemis II Core Stage Structures

Technicians at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans stacked two of three hardware elements for NASA's Space Launch System rocket in an assembly area in the facility on April 28. Crews connected the liquid oxygen tank flight hardware with the intertank.

Later, they will add the forward skirt to form the upper portion of the core stage that will help power Artemis II, the first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis Program and second flight of the SLS rocket.

Crews moved the intertank to the assembly and stacking area in March, and then moved the liquid oxygen tank to the same area. The joining of the three structures together is the first major assembly of hardware for the Artemis II core stage.

When completed, the upper part of the stage will stand 66 feet tall - just a fraction of the entire core stage. The fully-assembled, 212-foot-tall rocket stage consists of five hardware elements. Together, the core stage and its four RS-25 engines will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send Artemis II astronauts beyond Earth's orbit to lunar orbit.

The liquid oxygen tank is one of two giant liquid propellant tanks on the core stage. It will hold 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen cooled to minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit.

With the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon and establish sustainable exploration in preparation for missions to Mars. SLS and NASA's Orion spacecraft, along with the commercial human landing system and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA's backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission.

Related Links
Artemis program
Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

New Phoebus contract paves the way for development of future lightweight composite rocket stages
Paris, France (SPX) May 18, 2021
The European Space Agency (ESA) and ArianeGroup, lead contractor and design authority for Ariane 6, have signed a new technological development contract in the field of carbon composites. The PHOEBUS (Prototype of a Highly OptimizEd Black UpperStage) program will increase the maturity of the technologies needed to lower both the manufacturing cost and the weight of the Ariane 6 upper stage. The goal is thus to improve its performance (in particular, an increased payload capacity of about two metri ... read more