Tag: SLS

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NASA resets date for SLS rocket’s debut for 2020

Will it fly on 2019 or 2020? NASA’s latest schedule for the maiden launch of its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket has it both ways. Today the space agency said June 2020 is now the official time frame for Exploration Mission-1, or EM-1, which would send the SLS and NASA’s Orion capsule on an uncrewed trip beyond lunar orbit and back. But in an SLS status update, NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said a December 2019 date is still possible if planners address the manufacturing and production schedule risks that were identified during a review of the project.

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Systima gets a piece of the action for SLS

Space Launch System
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Space Launch System in flight. (NASA Illustration)

When NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket starts carrying astronauts beyond Earth orbit in the 2020s, it’ll also be carrying a key component built by Kirkland, Wash.-based Systima Technologies.

Systima will be responsible for providing a 27.6-foot-wide, ring-shaped joint assembly that separates the rocket’s universal stage adapter from its upper stage. The assembly will allow for the deployment of cargo and secondary payloads from the SLS once it rises into orbit.

Systima won the contract for the separation joint system this month from Dynetics, an Alabama-based company that’s the prime contractor for the universal stage adapter. The value of Systima’s contract is undisclosed, but it’s part of NASA’s $221.7 million contract with Dynetics.

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NASA plays it safe for SLS rocket’s first flight

SLS launch
An artist’s view shows NASA’s Space Launch System launching an Orion capsule. (NASA Illustration)

NASA has broken the news to the White House and the world that speeding up the first crewed flight of its exploration launch system wouldn’t be worth the added cost and risk.

That means the first launch of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System will fly without astronauts, as originally planned. And it will fly later than planned: NASA officials said today that liftoff will have to be delayed to 2019, although it’s too early to be more precise about the time frame.

The determination comes after weeks of discussions focusing on whether the flight plan for what’s known as Exploration Mission 1, or EM-1, could be tweaked to put people on board. Such a scenario would give the White House more to celebrate in President Donald Trump’s first term.

“We decided that while it’s technically feasible … the baseline plan that we had in place was the best way for us to go,” Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s acting administrator, told reporters today during a teleconference.

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NASA looks into quicker trip beyond the moon

Image: Orion
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Orion capsule in flight. (Credit: NASA)

NASA and its commercial partners say they’re studying the possibility of sending astronauts beyond the moon years earlier than planned, by putting a crew on the first flight of the space agency’s heavy-lift Space Launch System.

The NASA study, sparked in part by a desire for the Trump administration to do something dramatic in space during its first term, would consider whether such a flight could occur in 2019 or 2020.

The current plan calls for an uncrewed test flight of the SLS and NASA’s Orion capsule in late 2018, known as Exploration Mission-1 or EM-1. That mission would followed by a crewed test flight called EM-2 in the 2021-2023 time frame.

In a statement, NASA said acting administrator Robert Lightfoot asked Bill Gerstenmaier, the agency’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, to assess whether the first crew could ride on EM-1 instead of EM-2.

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NASA’s heavy-lift booster blasts through test

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Orbital ATK’s solid-rocket booster is in the midst of a test firing in Utah. (Credit: NASA)

The solid-rocket booster that’s destined to help send future NASA missions into deep space has blasted through its last full-scale test firing in advance of 2018’s maiden launch of the heavy-lift SLS rocket.

Today’s two-minute, six-second firing at Orbital ATK’s test range near Promontory, Utah, wowed hundreds of workers and onlookers who gathered (at a safe distance) to watch the booster light up like a “Game of Thrones” dragon.

“It’s always a blast,” Alex Priskos, manager of NASA’s Space Launch System Boosters Office, said with a straight face afterward.

Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut who is now Orbital ATK’s vice president and general manager for propulsion systems, said it was a “beautiful test.”

“That rumble that you get is awesome,” he said.

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NASA tries to pack big vision in smaller budget

Image: SLS launch
NASA is developing a heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System, shown in this artist’s conception. Spending in the category that includes the SLS and the Orion deep-space capsule would be trimmed in the budget proposed for the next fiscal year. (Credit: NASA)

Christmas has come and gone, and so has a bump in NASA’s spending plan: The agency’s proposed $19 billion budget for the next fiscal year, released today, represents a $300 million decline from this year’s level.

The money set aside for developing a new crew vehicle and heavy-lift rocket for deep-space exploration would be reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars, virtually guaranteeing a tussle with Congress.

Despite the reductions, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the agency’s vision for space exploration and technology is undimmed.

“The state of our NASA is as strong as it’s ever been – and when I say ‘our,’ I really mean it,” Bolden told a gathering of agency employees at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. He used that “strong” assessment as a frequent refrain for the last “State of NASA” address of the Obama administration.

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Giant rocket will carry tiny high-tech satellites

Image: Lunar Flashlight
An artist’s conception shows Lunar Flashlight flying above a crater on the moon. (Credit: NASA)

NASA says it’ll send 13 miniaturized satellites – including a pop-up solar sail and a “lunar flashlight” – beyond Earth orbit when it flies its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket for the first time in 2018.

The main payload for the test flight, known as Exploration Mission-1 or EM-1, is an uncrewed prototype for NASA’s Orion spaceship. The SLS will send Orion into a highly eccentric orbit that ranges beyond the moon and back.

But there’s also room inside the rocket’s adapter ring for a baker’s dozen of CubeSats, boxy spacecraft of a standard size that are becoming increasingly popular for low-cost space missions.

“They’re really on the cutting edge of technology,” NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman said today during a news conference at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

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