Exploration is a team sport

Kathy Lueders visits the Rotation, Surge and Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where the solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System rocket are currently being processed.

Today is my first day fully transitioned as the head of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and I am honored to lead a new era of human spaceflight.

You’ll hear me say this time and time again: exploration is a team sport. I saw that in low-Earth orbit with NASA, industry and our international partners, and it is critical to accomplishing the goals ahead for the Artemis program.

I’ve spent most of my 28 years at NASA focused on exploration 250 miles off the Earth, including most recently overseeing the Commercial Crew Program. We took a risk with industry by encouraging commercial innovation in a new market with the end goal of government becoming a customer of low-Earth orbit services, hopefully one of many. We tested that approach first with cargo deliveries, and now we are doing it again with crew.

I’m optimistic about industry’s ability to lead a private space economy in low-Earth orbit, one where NASA achieves our goal of being a regular customer. That frees us up to focus on human exploration farther in the universe including the Moon and Mars.

Just as sending cargo and humans to the space station are separate challenges, sending cargo and humans to the Moon and beyond are also different. Each requires significantly more risk and separate requirements. The responsibility of human life I am entrusted with as part of NASA has been at the front of my mind every step of the way with commercial crew and is as much so today as we prepare to push the boundaries of human exploration.

Built specifically for deep space missions, I am confident NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft are the only rocket and spacecraft capable of meeting our aggressive goal of landing the first woman and next man on the Moon in four years.

Orion is complete and SLS is on track for its last major test later this year before flight. These systems will be integrated early next year and launched together for the first time on an uncrewed flight test around the Moon in 2021 followed by a test flight with crew around the Moon in 2023.

Again, exploration is a team sport, and we are not going into deep space alone. We have prioritized commercial innovation in our plans to return to the Moon. In 2024, NASA will send astronauts on the Artemis III mission to lunar orbit where they will transfer to a commercial human landing system for an expedition to the lunar surface. These modern landers will be capable of docking to Orion or the Gateway, which will be operational by 2024. Built by commercial partners with planned additions from international partners, the Gateway is critical to enabling sustainable lunar operations by the end of the decade and missions farther into the solar system, including Mars.

The universe is vast and there’s room for all the players on our team. Expanding human presence into the solar system depends on our combined efforts to enable every aspect from our satellite communications network, to research on astronaut health and performance. Whether we work in science, technology or human spaceflight at NASA, the private sector or elsewhere in the world, we will achieve more when we work together.

As I move into this new chapter in my professional life, I’m excited for the many firsts to come – the first operational commercial flights to the space station. The first commercial lunar payload delivery. The first woman on the Moon. The first commercial lunar landers. The Gateway. And the many unknown scientific discoveries ahead. Mostly, I’m excited though because I know we’re all in this together. One team for all of humanity.

Now, let’s get to work!

-Kathy Lueders

Artemis II Orion Stage Adapter Taking Shape

Technicians at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, move panels for the Artemis II Orion stage adapter to a large robotic, welding machine.

Three panels for the Artemis II Orion stage adapter were built by AMRO Fabricating Corp. in South El Monte, California and shipped to Marshall where engineers and technicians from NASA are joining them using a sophisticated friction-stir welding process to form the Orion stage adapter. This critical part of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will send the Artemis II crew into lunar orbit. AMRO also built panels for the Artemis II launch vehicle stage adapter also currently being built at Marshall and the SLS core stage and the Orion crew module built at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. All panels where joined with the same friction-stir welding process. The Artemis I Orion stage adapter, also built at Marshall, has been delivered to Kennedy Space Center where it will be stacked with the rest of the SLS rocket components.  The adapter connects the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, the rocket’s upper stage that sends Orion to the Moon, to the Orion spacecraft. The Orion stage adapter has space for small payloads; on Artemis I it will transport 13 small satellites to deep space where they can study everything from asteroids to the Moon and radiation. SLS, the world’s most powerful rocket, along with NASA’s Orion spacecraft, will launch America into a new era of exploration to destinations beyond Earth’s orbit.

NASA Checks Out SLS Core Stage Avionics for Artemis I Mission

NASA completed  the second of eight tests in the Green Run test series at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, where the Space Launch System rocket’s core stage is installed in the B-2 Test Stand. The avionics power on and checkout test steadily brought the core stage flight avionics hardware, which controls the rocket’s first eight minutes of flight, to life for the first time. The three flight computers and avionics are located in the forward skirt, the top section of the 212-foot tall core stage, with more avionics distributed in the core’s intertank and engine section.

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Orion’s ‘Twin’ Completes Structural Testing for Artemis I Mission

The Orion structural test article forward bay cover jettison testing in progress at Lockheed Martin near Denver.

Engineers have completed testing on a duplicate of Orion called the Structural Test Article (STA), needed to verify the spacecraft is ready for Artemis I — its first uncrewed test flight. NASA and its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built the STA to be structurally identical to Orion’s main spacecraft elements: the crew module, service module and launch abort system.

The STA testing required to qualify Orion’s design began in early 2017 and involved 20 tests, using six different configurations — from a single element, to the entire full stack — and various combinations in between. At completion, the testing verified Orion’s structural durability for all flight phases of Artemis I.

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NASA Completes Artemis Space Launch System Structural Testing Campaign

On June 24, 2020, engineers completed the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s structural testing campaign for the Artemis lunar missions by testing the liquid oxygen structural test article to find its point of failure.

For the final test, the liquid oxygen tank test article — measuring 70 feet tall and 28 feet in diameter — was bolted into a massive 185,000-pound steel ring at the base of Marshall’s Test Stand 4697. Hydraulic cylinders were then calibrated and positioned all along the tank to apply millions of pounds of crippling force from all sides while engineers measured and recorded the effects of the launch and flight forces. The liquid oxygen tank circumferentially failed in the weld location as engineers predicted and at the approximate load levels expected, proving flight readiness and providing critical data for the tank’s designers. The test concluded at approximately 9 p.m. CT. This final test to failure on the LOX STA met all the program milestones.

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Hardware on the Move for Artemis II

The Orion crew module and its adapter for the first crewed Artemis mission are undergoing testing and maintenance at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. On Artemis II, Orion will launch atop the Space Launch System rocket and carry astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth.

The Orion capsule that will fly astronauts on the Artemis II mission.
This Orion crew module adapter that will connect the capsule to the Space Launch System rocket.

Rocket Motors for First NASA Artemis Moon Mission Arrive at Spaceport

A train transporting the 10 booster segments for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket arriving at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Twin rocket boosters for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) that will power Artemis missions to the Moon have arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The two motor segments, each comprised of five segments, arrived at Kennedy’s Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) on June 15, 2020, by train from a Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility in Promontory, Utah. Credits: NASA/Kevin O’Connell

The rocket booster segments that will help power NASA’s first Artemis flight test mission around the Moon arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday for launch preparations.

All 10 segments for the inaugural flight of NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft were shipped by train from Promontory, Utah. The 10-day, cross-country journey is an important milestone toward the first launch for NASA’s Artemis program.

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SLS Aft Skirts for Artemis I Move Out of Booster Fabrication Facility

Inside the Booster Fabrication Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Artemis I aft skirts for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s twin solid rocket boosters are being readied for their move to the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF). In view, the left aft skirt assembly is attached to a move vehicle and moved out of a test cell. The aft skirts were refurbished by Northrop Grumman. They house the thrust vector control system, which controls 70 percent of the steering during initial ascent of the SLS rocket. The segments will remain in the RPSF until ready for stacking with the forward and aft parts of the booster on the mobile launcher in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building.

NASA Selects Astrobotic to Fly Water-Hunting Rover to the Moon

Illustration of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) on the surface of the Moon
Illustration of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) on the surface of the Moon. Credits: NASA Ames/Daniel Rutter

NASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon’s South Pole in late 2023.

The water-seeking mobile VIPER robot will help pave the way for astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning in 2024 and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program.

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NASA Awards Northrop Grumman Artemis Contract for Gateway Crew Cabin

Artist's concept of the Gateway power and propulsion and Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, in orbit around the Moon.
Artist’s concept of the Gateway power and propulsion and Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, in orbit around the Moon. Credits: NASA

NASA has finalized the contract for the initial crew module of the agency’s Gateway lunar orbiting outpost.

Orbital Science Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Space, has been awarded $187 million to design the habitation and logistics outpost (HALO) for the Gateway, which is part of NASA’s Artemis program and will help the agency build a sustainable presence at the Moon. This award funds HALO’s design through its preliminary design review, expected by the end of 2020.

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