The dust is settling on the fly-by of the Moon of Artemis-2, and NASA is planning to take a big step this week toward the launch of the next missions, called Artemis-3. These new Moon flights begin with blastoff aboard an Alabama built rocket called the “Space Launch System.” The central component is called the “core stage.” That part of the rocket for Artemis-3 will be loaded on a barge for the trip to its Florida launch pad.
The “Space Launch System” rockets are designed, built, tested, and managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. The “core stage” is handled by NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans. That factory included a port where large components, like the external fuel tank used on the now retired space shuttle. The “core stage for Artemis-3 will be transported by barge around the tip of Florida, and up the Kennedy Space Center, where it will be outfitted with booster rockets and the Orion capsule for launch.
Artemis-3, set for next year, will be similar to the Apollo-9 mission in 1969. Thar earlier flight tested the Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM, used by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the first Moon landing. Artemis-3 may test two landers, built by competing companies, for a planned landing in 2028.
The Alabama built “Space Launch System” rocket builds on technology and equipment used by the retired space shuttles. The “core stage” is based on the earlier spacecraft’s external fuel tank. SLS has two solid rocket boosters, similar to the shuttle’s, except for the SLS boosters have an extra fuel segment making it taller and stronger. APR listeners heard from retired Apollo/Space Shuttle engineer Craig Sumner who was brought in as a “SME,” or “subject matter expert,” or consultant to work NASA’s new generation of engineers. He talked about using Shuttle hardware to make SLS work.
“I do think that we've tried to take assets that we could get our hands on and cheaply design a new vehicle,” Sumner said. “I had 535,000 gallons (in the shuttle external tank,) SLS has got 700,000. The solid rocket motors have an extra segment that burn 1.5 seconds or less to give us the thrust we need to get to low Earth orbit.”
Sumner noted how, during the space shuttle era, the external tanks burned up in the atmosphere, and the solid fuel boosters plunged into the ocean for retrieval and re-use. The new SLS utilizes four recycled liquid fueled main engines from the shuttle, which are lost in the ocean with the core stage of each SLS.
“So, I think picking and choosing some of those items that we've flown before, the only thing I don't like about it is we're putting them in the drink,” mentioned Sumner. “I wish we had more of the expendable launch vehicle capabilities of seeing these guys fly back to the launch pad or land on a barge out in the ocean, back in 1990 we had the advanced launch system proposed where NASA and the Air Force would work together.”
Sumner is referring to SpaceX rockets called Falcons, which routinely launch and then land by themselves on sea-going barges. NASA’s current strategyfor Artemis is to establish on-going presence on the moon including, possibly, a base. This idea reportedly bypasses a small space station, called GATEWAY, orbiting the moon and maybe a future version around Mars.
