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NASA's Mighty Moon Launcher Moves to Rocket Pad for Solo Testing
Space.com ^ | July 8, 2019 | Elizabeth Howell

Posted on 07/08/2019 8:43:31 AM PDT by Jagermonster

NASA's lunar mobile launcher is one step closer to sending its first spacecraft to the moon.

The launcher is now in final testing for Artemis 1 — an uncrewed test trip around the moon of the Orion spacecraft slated for 2020 or so — after making its last solo trip to the Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B on June 27. The launcher will remain at the pad for two months before going inside the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to join the Orion capsule and its rocket, called the Space Launch System (SLS).

One day, this same system could launch humans towards the moon. The Trump administration recently tasked NASA with landing humans there by 2024, and the agency is also planning a Gateway space station for future lunar missions. But first, engineers are putting the mobile launcher through a series of tests on the pad and in the VAB in preparation for these moon milestones.

"The mobile launcher has [already] gone through a series of critical tests in the VAB," Dan Florez, NASA test director with exploration ground systems at Kennedy, said in a statement. "We've conducted umbilical arm swing tests, environmental control system tests, hydraulic testing, nitrogen and helium testing and electrical tests to verify commands from the Launch Control Center are properly communicating with the ground support equipment and umbilicals."

Now that the launcher is at the pad, some of the forthcoming testing includes looking at the flow of water designed to suppress the sound waves from the SLS as it lifts off; otherwise, these waves could damage the SLS, Orion and the mobile launcher during ignition. Technicians will also examine the electrical and umbilical systems, as well as the propellant flow.

In addition, the team will swing three umbilical arms on the launcher at the same time in order to simulate what happens during launch. These umbilicals carry power and propulsion for the SLS, as well as air to purge the lines connecting to the 365-foot (111-meter) rocket.

While the launcher is new, there are technological echoes of the Apollo moon program of the 1960s that landed the first humans on the moon 50 years ago this month, in July 1969.

The SLS launcher made the slow, 10-hour journey aboard the same crawler-transporter that moved the mighty Saturn V rocket to its launch pad for its moon missions. Pad 39B, where the unit is being tested, was also the departure site of the Apollo 10 mission that served as a dress rehearsal for the lunar landing. (The other moon-bound Apollo missions all launched from Pad 39A). And the VAB is the same location where moon rockets were put together five decades ago.



TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: aerospace; artemis; artemis1; boondoggle; elonmusk; falcon9; falconheavy; lewisandclark; moon; nasa; orion; spacex; themoon
More Bang, Zoom.
1 posted on 07/08/2019 8:43:31 AM PDT by Jagermonster
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To: Jagermonster
How refreshing that NASA is in the space travel business again.

They should leave the enviro-propaganda business to the algore acolytes.

2 posted on 07/08/2019 8:51:16 AM PDT by pfflier
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To: rktman

Ping.


3 posted on 07/08/2019 8:52:04 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: pfflier

No, they are still in the testing business currently. They may like to get back to actually launching people but so far the rooskies are doing all the taxi service.


4 posted on 07/08/2019 8:55:10 AM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Jagermonster

To da Moon, Alice!


5 posted on 07/08/2019 8:55:26 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Army Air Corps

Thanks.


6 posted on 07/08/2019 8:57:09 AM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Jagermonster

Only $383 million and this just moves and holds the rocket:

NASA Awards Contract for Second Mobile Launcher at Kennedy Space Center

NASA has selected Bechtel National, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, to design and build a second mobile launcher, known as Mobile Launcher 2 or ML2, for Exploration Ground Systems at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The cost-plus-award-fee end item contract has a total value of approximately $383 million. Bechtel National will complete the design, build, test, and commissioning of the mobile launcher within a 44-month period beginning July 1.

ML2 is the ground structure that will be used to assemble, process, and launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1B rocket and Orion spacecraft from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy for missions under NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

It will consist of a base structure, the platform for SLS, and a tower equipped with a number of connection lines called umbilicals, as well as launch accessories that will provide SLS and Orion with power, communications, coolant, fuel, and stabilization prior to launch.


7 posted on 07/08/2019 9:08:43 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Facts are racist.)
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To: pfflier

How refreshing that NASA is in the space travel business again.

...

It would be refreshing if they were spending one tenth of the money.


8 posted on 07/08/2019 9:15:48 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Facts are racist.)
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To: Jagermonster

Lunar lander concept hasn’t changed in 50 years.


9 posted on 07/08/2019 9:31:30 AM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: Jagermonster
Resurrect NASSA.


10 posted on 07/08/2019 9:34:29 AM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: Rebelbase

“It was a different time, you understand....1957 or 1958!”


11 posted on 07/08/2019 9:35:20 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Jagermonster

Minus the fuel tanks, how big and mighty is it?

I saw the shuttle and it was a tiny little thing.


12 posted on 07/08/2019 9:37:45 AM PDT by bgill
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To: bgill

It’s still a BDR: a Big Dumb Rocket.

If only we had continued with the DC-X: Single Stage to Orbit, rockets the way God and Heinlein intended!!!


13 posted on 07/08/2019 9:45:57 AM PDT by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
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To: SunkenCiv

*ping*


14 posted on 07/08/2019 10:32:46 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Who will think of the gerbils ? Just say no to Buttgiggity !)
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To: Jagermonster

The SLS has always impressed me as an intermediate step between the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle. Unlike the Shuttle, none of its parts are meant to be reused.


15 posted on 07/08/2019 1:01:37 PM PDT by jmcenanly ("The more corrupt the state, the more laws." Tacitus, Publius Cornelius)
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