SLS: Nasa 'Megarocket' Assembly Begins in Florida
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
SLS: Nasa 'megarocket' assembly begins in Florida:
Nasa has started assembling the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on a launch platform ahead of its maiden flight next year.
The SLS is the giant rocket that will send US astronauts back to the Moon this decade - with the first crewed landing targeted for 2024.
Engineers in Florida have begun stacking the segments that make up the vehicle's two solid rocket boosters.
[...] Teams at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Florida lowered the first of 10 booster segments into place on a structure known as the mobile launcher on 21 November. The process is taking place inside the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy.
The boosters will burn six tonnes of solid, aluminium-based propellant each second when the SLS launches. They provide 75% of the vehicle's thrust at lift-off.
The mobile launcher they're being stacked on is a 115m (380ft) -tall structure that's used to process and assemble the SLS before moving it to the launch pad.
It's a huge symbolic step, not only for the SLS - which has been under development for a decade - but also Nasa's plan to send the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface by 2024, known as Artemis.
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