While the outside of NASA’s new deep-space rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) often gets all the glory, the inside works hard too. NASA is busy outfitting the rocket with what it needs for Artemis I, the first integrated mission of SLS and the Orion spacecraft. Engineers installed two sets of work platforms inside the rocket’s launch vehicle stage adapter. The adapter connects the rocket’s core stage with the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, which will fire its engine to send Orion into lunar orbit. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion with its crew to the Moon. Future upgrades to SLS will enable the rocket to launch both Orion with its crew and a large amount of cargo to lunar orbits on a single mission. This picture shows platforms inside the launch vehicle stage adapter that will allow technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida access to the stage. The cone-shaped adapter, which measures 28 feet tall and tapers from about 27.5 feet at the bottom to 16.5 feet at the top, was built by SLS prime contractor Teledyne Brown Engineering in an advanced manufacturing facility at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA’s Pegasus barge will take the adapter to Kennedy for launch where it will join the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, which was delivered in 2017.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC: Amy Buck