Tag: SLS

DoD Not Interested in Partnership With NASA on SLS

Reuters reports that NASA is “pushing ahead with plans to hand ownership of the Space Launch System (SLS) to a Boeing-Northrop joint venture in the next few years, with a goal of cutting in half the rocket’s price tag – estimated at $2 billion. But finding a market for a giant and costly rocket promises to be difficult, with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) – seen as a potential customer – signaling little interest.” In an interview, Col. Douglas Pentecost, a senior rocket acquisition official with the Space Force, said, “It’s a capability right now that we, the DoD, don’t need. … We have the capability that we need at the affordability price that we have, so we’re not that interested in some partnership with NASA on the SLS system.”
Full Story (Reuters)

New Rockets Set to Launch in 2023

NBC News reported that “a slate of new rockets look to make their debut” in 2023 and that “few rockets attract the kind of curiosity and awe that SpaceX’s behemoth Starship does.” Standing at a “towering 394 feet (with a 164-foot-tall spacecraft also known as Starship attached), the fully stacked launch vehicle is taller than NASA’s retired Saturn V rocket that was used during the Apollo moon program, as well as the agency’s new Space Launch System.” The next-generation rocket “is designed for missions to the moon and eventually Mars.” The huge booster “will play an important role in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon and establish bases on the lunar surface.” If successful, the rocket “will not only pave the way for more regular flights to the moon but will also lower the cost of such journeys.” Laura Forczyk, executive director of Astralytical, an Atlanta space consulting firm, said, “Starship has the opportunity to really revolutionize the way that we do space transportation, so it’s a big deal.” Starship is expected “to launch on its first uncrewed orbital flight this year, though no specific date has been announced by SpaceX.” Last month, the company “said it had completed a ‘wet dress rehearsal,’ which involved fully fueling the rocket with 10 million pounds of propellant, as would be done prior to liftoff.”
Full Story (NBC News)

NASA Declares SLS Ready for Crewed Missions

SPACE reports that NASA’s Space Launch System rocket “appears ready to take the next big step – launching astronauts. The debut SLS flight, on Nov. 16, kicked off NASA’s 25-day-long Artemis 1 mission, which sent an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back. … An initial assessment of SLS’ Artemis 1 performance, which NASA released on Nov. 30, gave the rocket high marks, finding that it performed as expected in all areas. Mission team members have now had more time to crunch the numbers, and the reviews continue to be rave, suggesting that no big changes will be required ahead of the first crewed SLS launch.” In a January 27 update, NASA officials wrote, “Building off the assessment conducted shortly after launch, the preliminary post-flight data indicates that all SLS systems performed exceptionally and that the designs are ready to support a crewed flight on Artemis 2.”
Full Story (SPACE)

NASA’s SLS On Target to Serve in Artemis Program

Space News reports on the successful testing of NASA’s Space Launch System last year and the successful return of the Orion capsule during the Artemis I mission. “Does a successful first flight finally mean that SLS will return astronauts to Earth’s moon more than 50 years after astronauts last visited? Does it earn SLS a future among the United States’ fleet of launch vehicles? Spoiler: the answer to both questions is probably ‘yes’ – which has profound consequences for the future of United States spaceflight.”
Full Story (Space News)

AIAA Statement on Successful Rollout of the Integrated Space Launch System and Orion Spacecraft

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2022 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) issued the following statement from AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher:

“Congratulations to NASA and the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems teams on the successful rollout from NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B. Witnessing this engineering marvel move from concept to production, and now to operation, is an inspirational moment for us today and for future generations. It is quite an achievement!

We are excited to see our nation’s space program prepare to take the next steps to the surface of the moon. The powerful SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, along with the essential ground systems, are the foundation of the Artemis program that will establish a sustainable presence on the moon in preparation for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. They provide a fundamental new capability enabling us to retain and grow U.S. leadership in space. We eagerly anticipate the program’s progress through tests and launch in the coming months.

We recognize the countless professionals across the aerospace industry involved from the beginning of this program, including those AIAA professional and corporate members, who have helped design, build, and test these new systems. We salute and applaud NASA and all those involved in this effort for making important contributions to shaping the future of aerospace.”

Media contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804.397.5270

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, andInstagram.

NASA On Track for SLS Rollout

Aviation Week reports that NASA “is on track to complete work on its first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and roll the vehicle out to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B on Aug. 18 ahead of liftoff on the Artemis I flight test.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

NASA Finishes Assembly of SLS

The Daily Mail (UK)  reports that NASA “has finished assembling its massive $18.6 billion (£13.18 billion) Space Launch System (SLS) ‘megarocket’ that will fly astronauts back to the moon over the coming decade.” On Friday, engineers at Kennedy Space Center “finished lowering the 212ft tall core stage between two smaller” boosters. This is “the first time the core stage and two boosters have been together in their launch configuration since the project was announced in 2011.” The SLS and the two solid boosters “will provide more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust to launch the first of NASA’s next-generation Artemis Moon missions, with Artemis-1 launching in November this year.”
Full Story (Daily Mail)

KSC Prepares for Arrival of SLS Core Stage

Florida Today reports that the team at Kennedy Space Center are preparing for the arrival of the Space Launch System core stage. Inside the center’s Vehicle Assembly building (VAB), “twin solid rocket boosters stand at attention ready” for the core stage, which is expected to arrive in late April. Technicians at KSC “began stacking the 177-foot tall boosters back in November and are now working on final touches such as closing out the joints on the boosters and adding wiring and cabling.” Once the SLS’ first stage “arrives[,] it will be transported inside the VAB where technicians will perform work on the thermal protection system and other systems before attaching it to the boosters.”
Full Story (Florida Today)

AIAA Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala to Confer Top Honors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Event Honors Aerospace’s Best and Brightest

March 23, 2021 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has announced the 2021 recipients of its most prestigious awards. Presentation of these premier awards will take place on Thursday, 12 August 2021, at the AIAA Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala. This will be a virtual event.

The AIAA Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala is an annual event recognizing the most influential and inspiring individuals in aerospace, whose outstanding contributions merit the highest accolades.

“Congratulations to our premier award winners,” said AIAA President Basil Hassan. “We are inspired by their hard work, skill, and achievements, and we thank them for their dedication to the aerospace industry. AIAA is committed to ensuring that aerospace professionals are recognized and celebrated for their achievements, innovations, and discoveries that make the world safer, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous. I’m excited to recognize these trailblazers at the virtual AIAA Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala in August!”

The winners are:

AIAA Goddard Astronautics Award – Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, U.S. Air Force (retired)

AIAA Reed Aeronautics Award – Michimasa Fujino, Honda Aircraft Company

AIAA Distinguished Service Award – Merri J. Sanchez, The Aerospace Corporation

AIAA International Cooperation Award –

  • Michael Watkins, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • Michael A. Gross, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • Frank Flechtner, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
  • Albert Zaglauer, Airbus Defence and Space

AIAA Public Service Award – Marcia S. Smith, SpacePolicyOnline.com

AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award – Benjamin Jorns, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

AIAA Engineer of the Year – Humberto Silva III, Sandia National Laboratories

AIAA Educator Achievement Award –

  • Suzanne Banas, South Miami Middle Community School Miami, Florida
  • Leesa Hubbard, W.A. Wright Elementary, Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
  • Mark Westlake, Saint Thomas Academy, Mendota Heights, Minnesota
Award Citations

AIAA Goddard Astronautics Award
The highest honor AIAA bestows for notable achievement in the field of astronautics. It was endowed by Mrs. Goddard in the 1940s as the ARS Goddard Memorial Award to commemorate her husband, Robert H. Goddard—rocket visionary, pioneer, bold experimentalist, and superb engineer whose early liquid rocket engine launches set the stage for the development of astronautics.
Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, U.S. Air Force (retired), honored “For outstanding and notable contributions to the U.S. Air Force, the field of astronautics, and the aerospace and defense community.”

AIAA Reed Aeronautics Award
The highest honor AIAA bestows for notable achievement in the field of aeronautics. The award is named after Dr. Sylvanus A. Reed, the aeronautical engineer, designer, and founding member of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences in 1932. Reed was the first to develop a propeller system composed of metal rather than wood. His aluminum alloy propeller gave Jimmy Doolittle’s plane the speed it needed to win the 1925 Schneider Cup race and brought the inventor much credit and many rewards.
Michimasa Fujino, Honda Aircraft Company, honored “For the invention of advanced aerodynamic and structural technologies implemented on Honda’s first aircraft, the HondaJet, creating new value in business aviation.”

AIAA Distinguished Service Award
AIAA recognizes an individual member who has provided distinguished service to the Institute over a period of years.
Merri J. Sanchez, The Aerospace Corporation, honored “For over three decades of leadership and distinguished service to AIAA that contributed significantly to the success of the Institute.”

AIAA International Cooperation Award
The award recognizes individual/s who have made significant contributions to the initiation, organization, implementation, and/or management of activities with significant U.S. involvement and that includes extensive international cooperative activities in space, aeronautics, or both.
Michael Watkins, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Michael A. Gross, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Frank Flechtner, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences; Albert Zaglauer, Airbus Defence and Space, honored “For outstanding leadership of the international consortium in the planning and implementation of the successful Earth gravity missions GRACE and GRACE-FO.”

AIAA Public Service Award
The highest recognition AIAA bestows on a person outside the aerospace community who has shown consistent and visible support for national aviation and space goals.
Marcia S. Smith, SpacePolicyOnline.com, honored “For a lifetime and ongoing public support of aerospace, providing cogent analyses of critical, high visibility issues to Congress, the government, and the general public.”

AIAA Lawrence Sperry Award
The award is presented for a notable contribution made by a young person, age 35 or under, to the advancement of aeronautics or astronautics. This award honors Lawrence B. Sperry, pioneer aviator and inventor, who died in 1923 in a forced landing while attempting a flight across the English Channel.
Benjamin Jorns, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, honored “In recognition of his seminal experimental and theoretical work on wave-driven effects in Hall thrusters and his contributions to the development of advanced thruster technologies.”

AIAA Engineer of the Year
This award is presented to a member of the Institute who has made a recent individual, technical contribution in the application of scientific and mathematical principles leading to a significant technical accomplishment.
Humberto Silva III, Sandia National Laboratories, recognized “For pioneering the modernization of re-entry vehicle probability loss of assured safety assessments including conduction, convection, chemical kinetics, radiation and associated thermophysical material uncertainty.”

AIAA Media Contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270.

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

NASA to Perform Hot-Fire Test of Heavy-Lift Rocket Thursday

Spaceflight Now reports that NASA plans to ignite the core stage of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket Thursday “to confirm it is ready for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.” The hot-fire test is scheduled for a two-hour window beginning at 3 p.m. EDT at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on a B-2 stand. The rocket’s “four liquid-fueled Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines will fire for about eight minutes, the same time they will fire when the Space Launch System blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center,” if successful. Once testing is complete, the core stage will be inspected by ground crews before shipment to Florida “for attachment to the rocket’s two side-mounted solid rocket boosters, upper stage, and an Orion capsule the SLS will propel on a mission to the moon.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

AIAA Statement on the Successful Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage “Green Run” Testing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2021 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) congratulates NASA on its successful “Green Run” test firing today. AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:

“The completion of the ‘Green Run’ test marks the completion of all testing on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Core Stage – we now have hardware testing proof that America is ready to take our next steps to the moon and Mars.

“The core stage is the element of the system that gives it the main push to get astronauts and large payloads to the moon, Mars and beyond. This is the large ‘moving van’ needed to get people and material to places beyond low Earth orbit. It will allow the United States to build large new outposts on and near the moon and Mars more simply and more efficiently.

“This rocket is designed to take us to the moon and Mars, it provides a fundamental new capability that will also enable us to retain and grow U.S. leadership in space.

“I want to recognize the countless AIAA members involved in all aspects of the supply chain in this endeavor, including those who have helped design, build and test SLS. We salute and applaud the professional, young professional and corporate members for their important contributions to this much needed capability.”

AIAA Media Contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270.

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

NASA Prepares for Wednesday SLS Fueling Test

Spaceflight Now reported that engineers “are ready to reload NASA’s Artemis moon rocket with supercold fuel Wednesday to make sure a repaired liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting is leak free, one of two requirements that must be met before the agency can make a third attempt to launch the huge booster September 27 on the program’s maiden moonshot.” NASA is awaiting a waiver from the Space Force Eastern Range “allowing the unpiloted launch to proceed without first double-checking the health of batteries in the rocket’s self-destruct system.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 Watch the Artemis I launch live on NASA TV

The next anticipated launch window will take place in late September 2022.

SLS Exploration Upper Stage Passes NASA Critical Design Review

Space News reports that The Boeing Company announced Monday that the Exploration Upper Stage of the Space Launch System completed a critical design review with NASA that “confirmed the design of the EUS, allowing Boeing to proceed with development of the stage, including hardware fabrication.” The EUS, which has larger tanks and uses four Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engines, “will be used on the Block 1B variant of SLS, replacing the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) used on the initial Block 1 version of the SLS and based on the Delta 4 upper stage.” The Block 1B variant can place 38 metric tons onto a translunar injection trajectory, an increase from Block 1’s performance of 27 metric tons. This will “enable SLS Block 1B missions launching Orion spacecraft to carry additional ‘co-manifested’ payloads, such as components for the lunar Gateway.”
Full Story (Space News)

SLS Set to Fly Soon

TIME reported that NASA engineers are confident they can fix the Space Launch System’s loose collet issue in time for the launch windows in late August and early September. The mission “involves the SLS flying an Orion crew vehicle first into Earth orbit and then on a long looping trajectory that will see it fly around the moon at altitudes ranging from just 100 km (62 mi.) to 70,000 km (43,000 mi.). The Orion capsule will then return to Earth, slamming into the atmosphere at about 32,000 km/hr (20,000 mph) and sustaining temperatures of up to 2,700ºC (nearly 5,000ºF) on its heat shield, before splashing down in the Pacific off the San Diego coast.”
Full Story (TIME)

NASA SLS Rocket’s Flight Termination System May Further Delay Launch

The Washington Post reports on the Flight Termination System for NASA’s Space Launch System, a “detonation system designed to destroy the rocket in case it starts to veer wildly off course and threaten people on the ground.” The system, while “a vital and ubiquitous” safety component, is “creating a bit of a headache for NASA as it struggles to launch the SLS rocket for the first time.” Although the Space Force “requires the batteries on the SLS’s termination system to be recharged” regularly, this task can “only be done in the rocket’s assembly building,” further delaying “a launch that last week was waived off twice because of other technical problems, including a massive leak of the liquid hydrogen the rocket uses for fuel.” The Space Force had already extended its battery charging time window, and NASA is in discussions “for a waiver that would allow the time frame to be extended yet again,” although the waive would “have to extend the initial 20-day requirement to over some 40 days, since the earliest NASA could attempt a launch is a two-week period that begins Sept. 19.”
Full Story (Washington Post)

Artemis I Launch Weather Projected to be Favorable, Storms Expected for Saturday SpaceX Launch

Florida Today reports that Florida “summertime weather could threaten a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch scheduled for Saturday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. On the other hand, conditions for Monday morning’s highly anticipated liftoff of NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule from Kennedy Space Center seem to be more favorable.” On Saturday night, “SpaceX teams will likely have to contend with 40% ‘go’ conditions for the 58th liftoff of dozens of Starlink satellites at 10:22 p.m. EDT from LC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But, Space Force forecasters expect those conditions to improve to around 60% throughout the launch window which closes just after midnight.”
Full Story (Florida Today)

 

 Watch the Artemis I launch live on NASA TV

Launch scheduled for Monday, August 29, between 8:33 a.m. and 10:33 a.m. EDT

Starship, SLS Could Supercharge Space Science

Scientific American reports that NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS)’s massive size “could ultimately be a boon for scientists seeking to send larger, more ambitious spacecraft and telescopes throughout the solar system – and even beyond.” The article also reports that SpaceX’s Starship is even more promising. Southwest Research Institute’s Alan Stern said, “Starship holds the promise of transforming the solar system in a way we can’t really appreciate. It completely changes the game.” Stern noted about the SLS and Starship, “These rockets can enable whole new classes of missions – to all the giant planets and the Kuiper belt objects, to the ocean world satellites and the dwarf planets of the solar system.”
Full Story (Scientific American)