Wednesday, November 25, 2020

SLS Update #2: NASA Will Soon Begin Assembling the Most Powerful Launch Vehicle Since the Saturn 5 Rocket...

Eight of the ten segments that will form the Space Launch System's twin solid rocket boosters are placed inside the Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA

NASA Lines Up Artemis I Rocket Booster Motors for Stacking (News Release)

Eight rocket motor segments for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) are lined up in preparation for stacking at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As each segment completed processing, workers moved them to the surge bay at Kennedy’s Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility. Each of the fully assembled, 177-foot-tall solid rocket boosters on SLS produce more than 3.6 million pounds of thrust and together provide more than 75% of the total thrust during the first two minutes of launch and flight.

The booster segments will help power the first Artemis mission of NASA’s Artemis program with the SLS rocket. NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team transported the motor segments to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), and will use a crane to lift the booster segments and stack them one by one on the mobile launcher. The bottom section of the boosters, known as the aft assemblies, were completed in November and moved to the VAB, and the first of the two pieces was placed on the mobile launcher Nov. 21.

The boosters are the first elements of SLS to be installed on the mobile launcher ahead of the Artemis I launch. After booster stacking is complete, the core stage, which is undergoing final Green Run testing at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, will be delivered to Kennedy and moved to the VAB to continue rocket construction.

NASA is working to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS and Orion, along with the Human Landing System and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Eight of the ten segments that will form the Space Launch System's twin solid rocket boosters are placed inside the Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

SLS Update: The First Solid Rocket Booster Segment Is Placed Atop the Mobile Launcher at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida...

The aft segment of one of the Space Launch System's twin solid rocket boosters is about to be placed atop the mobile launcher inside Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida.
NASA / Kim Shiflett

Artemis I Launch Preparations Are Stacking Up (News Release)

NASA has stacked the first piece of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the mobile launcher in preparation for the Artemis I launch next year. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers lowered the first of 10 segments into place Nov. 21 for the twin solid rocket boosters that will power the first flight of the agency’s new deep space rocket. Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight to test the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon with the Artemis program.

The booster segments arrived by train at the Florida spaceport in June from Northrop Grumman’s manufacturing facility in Utah to undergo final launch preparations. Stacking operations began Nov. 19 with engineers transporting a booster segment from the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility to the 525-foot-tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

Each booster consists of five segments and will provide 7 million pounds of thrust for the liftoff from Launch Pad 39B. When assembled, each booster will be about half the length of a football field, and together they will generate more thrust than 14 four-engine jumbo commercial airliners. Once stacked, the SLS rocket will stand taller than the Statue of Liberty and have about 15% more thrust at liftoff than the Apollo program Saturn V rocket, making it the most powerful rocket ever built.

“Stacking the first piece of the SLS rocket on the mobile launcher marks a major milestone for the Artemis Program,” said Andrew Shroble, an integrated operations flow manager with Jacobs. “It shows the mission is truly taking shape and will soon head to the launch pad.”

The solid rocket boosters are the first components of the SLS rocket to be stacked and will help support the remaining rocket pieces and the Orion spacecraft. Over the next several weeks, workers will use an overhead crane that can hold up to 325 tons (the weight of about 50 elephants), to lift the remaining segments one by one and place them carefully onto the 380-foot-tall mobile launcher, the structure used to process, assemble, and launch the SLS rocket. The cranes are precise enough to lower an object onto an egg without cracking it.

The first booster segments to be stacked are the bottom sections known as the aft assemblies. These house the system that controls 70% of the steering during initial ascent of the rocket. This section includes the aft motor segment and skirt, and the nozzle that directs the hot gas leaving the motor. After stacking the other four segments, the final pieces of the boosters are the forward assemblies, which include the nose cone that serves as the aerodynamic leading edge of the boosters. The forward assemblies will attach to the core stage when it arrives next year.

Under the Artemis program, NASA aims to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024 and establish sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade. SLS and Orion, along with the Human Landing System and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration.

Source: NASA.Gov

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The aft segment of one of the Space Launch System's twin solid rocket boosters is placed atop the mobile launcher inside Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida.
NASA / Cory Huston

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Artemis Update: Discussing the Science Instruments That Will Fly on NASA's Lunar Space Station...

An artist's concept of NASA's Gateway space station in orbit around the Moon.
NASA

Lunar Gateway Instruments to Improve Weather Forecasting for Artemis Astronauts (News Release)

One of the first things people want to know before taking a trip is what the weather will be like wherever they are headed. For Artemis astronauts traveling on missions to the Moon, two space weather instrument suites, NASA’s HERMES and ESA’s ERSA, will provide an early forecast. Weather in this case means energized, subatomic particles and electromagnetic fields hurtling through the solar system.

The instrument suites, named after two of Artemis’s half-siblings in Greek Mythology – Ersa, the goddess of dew, and Hermes, the messenger of the Olympian gods – will be pre-loaded on the Gateway before the first two components are launched: the Power and Propulsion Element and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost. The two instrument suites will begin monitoring the lunar radiation environment and return data before crews begin to arrive.

Reinforcing decades of agency collaboration in space, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are each building one of the instruments suites to monitor deep space weather and report data back to Earth. Each agency was able to take advantage of this early opportunity to conduct science from Gateway – first realized in late 2019 – by capitalizing on technologies that were mature enough to be delivered by mid-2022. The two complementary mini weather stations will split up the work, with ERSA monitoring space radiation at higher energies with a focus on astronaut protection, while HERMES monitors lower energies critical to scientific investigations.

Swimming in a solar sea

The night sky may appear dark and empty, but we are swimming through an open sea of high energy particles writhing with electric and magnetic fields. Electrons and ions zoom by at over one million miles per hour, with occasional blasts from solar storms pushing them to near light-speed. This stream of particles, or tiny bits of Sun, is the solar wind.

Earth’s magnetic field, which extends approximately 60,000 miles into space, protects us and our astronaut crew closer to home aboard the International Space Station. As the Moon orbits Earth, it passes in and out of Earth’s long magnetotail, the part of Earth’s magnetic field blown back by the solar wind like a windsock. Gateway, however, will spend only a quarter of its time within this magnetic field, so it provides a research opportunity to directly measure the solar wind and radiation from the Sun.

HERMES

HERMES, short for Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite, will glimpse what’s happening deep in the magnetotail, allowing NASA to compare its observations to two of the five THEMIS spacecraft, a pair of Moon-orbiters that carry some similar instruments as HERMES. The ability to collect data simultaneously from the three instrument suites in different locations will provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct solar wind behavior as it changes over time.

HERMES will measure lower energy radiation that will be considered for astronaut safety where applicable, but its primary goal is scientific.

“The deep space environment is harsh, but by understanding space weather and solar activity we can properly mitigate risks to our astronauts and hardware,” said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington. “HERMES and ERSA are a perfect example of the synergy between science and exploration.”

HERMES is led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. It consists of four instruments mounted together on a platform: A magnetometer, which measures the magnetic fields around Gateway, the Miniaturized Electron pRoton Telescope, or MERiT, which measures ions and electrons; the Electron Electrostatic Analyzer, or EEA, which measures the lower energy electrons that make up most of the solar wind, and the Solar Probe Analyzer for Ions, or SPAN-I, which measures protons and ions including oxygen. The magnetometer, MERiT and EEA are provided by Goddard; SPAN-I is built at the University of California, Berkeley.

ERSA

ERSA, or European Radiation Sensors Array, will study the solar wind’s effects on astronauts and their equipment. Equipped with five instruments, ERSA measures energetic particles from the Sun, galactic cosmic rays, neutrons, ions, and magnetic fields around the Gateway. Measuring these particles can tell us about the physics of radiation in the solar system, and understand the risks posed by radiation to human spacefarers and their hardware.

“Understanding the changing radiation environment around the Moon and at the Gateway is important if we are to understand the potential dangers astronauts will face and how to address them. It also helps us to understand and predict space weather across the Earth-Moon system,” said James Carpenter, ESA’s Exploration Science Coordinator.

Included in the suite is the Influence sur les Composants Avancés des Radiations de l'Espace, or ICARE-NG instrument, which measures ionizing radiation that can create brief spikes in voltage that can make electronics short-circuit. Another instrument, the European Active Dosimeter, measures the energy that would be deposited by radiation in living tissue to understand human radiation exposure.

The measurements from both HERMES and ERSA are made at time of impact, once the radiation has already arrived. But in the long term, the measurements will help NASA and ESA improve their models of space weather to better predict when such radiation could be on its way from the Sun, enabling better advanced warnings in the future.

Gateway is a vital part of the Artemis program. Through Artemis, NASA and its partners will learn to live, work, and conduct science on and around the Moon, creating a sustained human-robotic presence at Earth’s nearest neighbor. At the Moon, we will learn how to thrive on other worlds, preparing humanity for the next great voyage to Mars.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Monday, November 16, 2020

ISS Update #2: The Crew Dragon Resilience Has Docked at the Orbital Outpost...

A screenshot of Crew-1 astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Victor Glover (right) monitoring systems as their Crew Dragon capsule Resilience is about to dock at the International Space Station...on November 16, 2020.
NASA TV

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Astronauts Arrive at Space Station, NASA Leaders and Crew to Discuss Mission (Press Release)

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience successfully docked to the International Space Station at 11:01 p.m. EST Monday, transporting NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

When the hatches open about 1:10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, the Crew-1 astronauts will join Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA, and station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos, who arrived to the station Oct. 14.

NASA TV will continue to provide live coverage through the welcoming ceremony with NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Kathy Lueders joining to greet the crew from the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa joining from the Tsukuba Space Center in Japan. The welcome ceremony is targeted to begin about 1:40 a.m.

About 2 a.m., NASA will host a news conference following the welcome ceremony with the following participants:

- Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and operations, NASA Headquarters
- Johnson Space Center Director Mark Geyer
- Ven Feng, deputy manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Joel Montalbano, program manager, International Space Station

All media participation will be remote; no media will be accommodated at any NASA site due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Media may ask questions by phone in the post-docking news conference Nov. 17 by calling the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 1:50 a.m.

On Thursday, Nov. 19, the four astronauts who are beginning the first crew rotation mission on the space station will join Rubins to answer questions in a news conference from the space station that will air live at 9:55 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

The crew will discuss its upcoming expedition, which increases the regular space station crew size from six to seven astronauts – adding to the crew time available for research – as well as their launch, rendezvous, and docking.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission lifted off Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7:27 p.m. on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission is the first of six certified, crew missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

Media may ask questions for the crew news conference Nov. 19 by phone by calling the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18. Questions also may be submitted in advance using #askNASA. Reporters must dial into the news conference no later than 9 a.m. Thursday.

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A screenshot of the Crew Dragon capsule Resilience docked at the International Space Station...on November 16, 2020.
NASA TV

Sunday, November 15, 2020

ISS Update: SpaceX Has Officially Begun Crew Rotation Missions to the Orbital Outpost!

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule Resilience lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida...on November 15, 2020.
SpaceX

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Astronauts Headed to International Space Station (Press Release)

An international crew of astronauts is en route to the International Space Station following a successful launch on the first NASA-certified commercial human spacecraft system in history. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission lifted off at 7:27 p.m. EST Sunday from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Crew Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), into orbit to begin a six-month science mission aboard the space station.

“NASA is delivering on its commitment to the American people and our international partners to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective missions to the International Space Station using American private industry,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “This is an important mission for NASA, SpaceX and our partners at JAXA, and we look forward to watching this crew arrive at station to carry on our partnership for all of humanity.”

The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Resilience, will dock autonomously to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module about 11 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16. NASA Television and the agency’s website are providing ongoing live coverage through docking, hatch opening, and the ceremony to welcome the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory.

"I could not be more proud of the work we've done here today,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX. “Falcon 9 looked great, Dragon was dropped off into a beautiful orbit about 12 minutes into the mission, and we'll get more data as we go.”

The Crew-1 mission is the first of six crewed missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. This mission has several firsts, including:

- The first flight of the NASA-certified commercial system designed for crew transportation, which moves the system from development into regular flights;
- The first international crew of four to launch on an American commercial spacecraft;
- The first time the space station’s long duration expedition crew size will increase from six to seven crew members, which will add to the crew time available for research; and
- The first time the Federal Aviation Administration has licensed a human orbital spaceflight launch.
- The astronauts named the Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience, highlighting the dedication teams involved with the mission have displayed and to demonstrate that when we work together, there is no limit to what we can achieve. They named it in honor of their families, colleagues, and fellow citizens.

“Watching this mission launch is a special moment for NASA and our SpaceX team,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “We are looking forward to getting this crew to station to continue our important work, and I want to thank the teams for the amazing effort to make the next generation of human space transportation possible.”

During flight, SpaceX commands the spacecraft from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California, and NASA teams monitor space station operations throughout the flight from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi will join the Expedition 64 crew of Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA.

“It is an honor to have our Japanese astronaut launch on this Crew-1 Dragon as the first astronaut of the International Partner participating in the ISS program,” said Hiroshi Sasaki, JAXA vice president. “We look forward to having him conduct lots of science and demonstrate the technology, for here on Earth and for the future. I would also like to thank NASA and SpaceX for their tremendous effort to make this happen.”

Rubins, Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi will participate in a live crew news conference from orbit at 9:55 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, on NASA TV and the agency’s website.

Crew-1 Astronauts

Michael Hopkins is commander of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Crew-1 mission. Hopkins is responsible for all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry. He also will serve as an Expedition 64 flight engineer aboard the station. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009, Hopkins spent 166 days in space as a long-duration crew member of Expeditions 37 and 38 and completed two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes. Born in Lebanon, Missouri, Hopkins grew up on a farm outside Richland, Missouri. He has a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University. Before joining NASA, Hopkins was a flight test engineer with the U.S. Air Force. Follow Hopkins on Twitter.

Victor Glover is the pilot of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and second-in-command for the mission. Glover is responsible for spacecraft systems and performance. He also will be a long-duration space station crew member. Selected as an astronaut in 2013, this is his first spaceflight.

The California native holds a Bachelor of Science degree in general engineering from California Polytechnic State University, a Master of Science degree in flight test engineering and a master’s degree military operational art and science from Air University, and a Master of Science degree in systems engineering from Naval Postgraduate School. Glover is a naval aviator and was a test pilot in the F/A‐18 Hornet, Super Hornet, and EA‐18G Growler aircraft. Follow Glover on Twitter and Instagram.

Shannon Walker is a mission specialist for Crew-1. As a mission specialist, she works closely with the commander and pilot to monitor the vehicle during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight. She also is responsible for monitoring timelines, telemetry, and consumables. Once aboard the station, Walker will become a flight engineer for Expedition 64. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2004, Walker launched to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft as the co-pilot, and spent 161 days aboard the orbiting laboratory. More than 130 microgravity experiments were conducted during her stay in areas such as human research, biology, and materials science. A Houston native, Walker received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Rice University, as well as a Master of Science degree and a doctorate in space physics, both from Rice University, in 1992 and 1993, respectively.

Soichi Noguchi also is a mission specialist for Crew-1, working with the commander and pilot to monitor the vehicle during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight, and keeping watch on timelines, telemetry and consumables. Noguchi also will become a long-duration crew member aboard the space station. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA, currently the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in May 1996. Noguchi is a veteran of two spaceflights. During STS-114 in 2005, Noguchi became the first Japanese astronaut to perform a spacewalk outside the space station. He performed a total of three spacewalks during the mission, accumulating 20 hours and 5 minutes of spacewalking time. He launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in 2009, to return to the station as a long-duration crew member. The Crew Dragon will be the third spacecraft Noguchi has flown to the orbiting laboratory. Follow Noguchi on Twitter and Instagram.

Mission Objectives

The crew will conduct science and maintenance during a six-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory and will return in spring 2021. It is scheduled to be the longest human space mission launched from the United States. The Crew Dragon spacecraft is capable of staying in orbit for at least 210 days, as a NASA requirement.

Crew Dragon also is delivering more than 500 pounds of cargo, new science hardware and experiments inside, including Food Physiology, a study of the effects of an optimized diet on crew health and, Genes in Space-7, a student-designed experiment that aims to better understand how spaceflight affects brain function, enabling scientists to keep astronauts healthy as they prepare for long-duration missions in low-Earth orbit and beyond.

Among the science and research investigations the crew will support during its six-month mission are a study using chips with tissue that mimics the structure and function of human organs to understand the role of microgravity on human health and diseases and translate those findings to improve human health on Earth, growing radishes in different types of light and soils as part of ongoing efforts to produce food in space, and testing a new system to remove heat from NASA’s next generation spacesuit, the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU).

During their stay on the orbiting laboratory, Crew-1 astronauts expect to see a range of uncrewed spacecraft including the next generation of SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus, and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner on its uncrewed flight test to the station. They also will conduct a variety of spacewalks and welcome crews of the Russian Soyuz vehicle and the next SpaceX Crew Dragon in 2021.

At the conclusion of the mission, the Crew-1 astronauts will board Crew Dragon, which will then autonomously undock, depart the space station, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. Crew Dragon also will return to Earth important and time-sensitive research. NASA and SpaceX are capable of supporting seven splashdown sites located off Florida's east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Upon splashdown, the SpaceX recovery ship will pick up the crew and return to shore.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is delivering on its goal of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry. This partnership is changing the arc of human spaceflight history by opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, more science, and more commercial opportunities.

The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars. For more than 20 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. As a global endeavor, 242 people from 19 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 3,000 research and educational investigations from researchers in 108 countries and areas.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Crew-1 astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Soichi Noguchi greet the crowd gathered outside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building prior to heading out to Launch Complex 39A to board their Falcon 9 rocket for flight...on November 15, 2020.
NASA / Joel Kowsky

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Orion's European Service Module Is Encapsulated for the Artemis 1 Launch Next Year...

Inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Orion capsule's European Service Module is encapsulated by its three spacecraft adapter fairing panels...on October 28, 2020.
NASA

Orion is ‘Fairing’ Well and Moving Ahead Toward Artemis I (News Release)

Three spacecraft adapter jettison fairing panels have now been fitted onto Orion’s European Service Module as production accelerates inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Teams from across the globe recently completed work to install the four solar array wings, which are housed inside the protective covering of the fairings. The panels were inspected and moved into place for installation by technicians with Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor for Orion. Once secured, they encapsulate the service module to protect it from harsh environments such as heat, wind, and acoustics as the spacecraft is propelled out of Earth’s atmosphere atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket during NASA’s Artemis I mission.

The fairing panels, each 14 feet high and 13 feet wide, are individually about the size of a one-car garage. The jettison panels will separate from the service module using a series of timed pyrotechnics, or firings, which will allow the solar array wings to unfurl and provide energy to propel and power the spacecraft for the duration of its mission.

The final assembly activities for the spacecraft include installation of the forward bay cover, which protects the upper part of Orion including its parachutes throughout its mission, final adjustments of the main parachutes, securing and testing of electrical connections, along with closure and latching of the side hatch. As each area of the vehicle is closed out, it will undergo final inspections to complete production. The spacecraft will then begin its path to the pad, including stops along the way to be fueled and integrated with its launch abort system and, ultimately, the SLS rocket for launch from Launch Pad 39B.

Artemis I will test the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon. Under the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024.

Source: NASA.Gov

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