Construction work will then continue on the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, enclosing the space shuttle inside. The California Science Center will lift and mate NASA's last remaining built-for-flight external tank, ET-94, with the standing solid rocket boosters in early 2024 and then do the same with Endeavour. Artemis 2 is targeted to launch no earlier than late 2024 with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on board. The science center expects that to take place in early December, after they can erect scaffolding to take the place of the work platforms in the VAB.Īt Kennedy Space Center, after the SRBs will come the core stage of the SLS and then the Orion spacecraft with its European service module and launch escape system tower. In Florida and California, the SRMs will be followed by the forward assemblies, or nose cones, to complete the solid rocket boosters. So it is about two to two and a half months for that to happen," Christopherson said. "We can typically do about two joints a week and we have eight joints. In the VAB, it will take more than a couple of days. Should everything go to plan, the California Science Center expects to have both SRMs lifted and in place by as early as Wednesday afternoon. NASA's space shuttle program in pictures: A tribute Rocket booster parts arrive in LA to stand up space shuttle Endeavour exhibit Space shuttle Endeavour arrives at its new LA museum home Related: NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know The booster segments lifted on Tuesday in Los Angeles weighed just 104,000 pounds (47,000 kg). As such, each SRM for Artemis 2 weighs about 855,000 pounds (340,000 kilograms), excluding the lower segment attached to the aft skirt. Each is filled with solid rocket fuel, the propellant that will provide 75 percent of the total thrust for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at lift off. To begin, the SRMs at Kennedy are not empty. There are differences between the two stacks, though. The Artemis 2 boosters are made up of parts that launched on 12 of Endeavour's flights, including its first (STS-49) and last (STS-134) missions. The SRBs that will stand with Endeavour include components that flew with the same orbiter on 16 of its 25 missions. The same, but differentīoth sets of boosters in Florida and California were assembled by Northrop Grumman from pieces that flew with the space shuttle before. "There are 177 one-inch-long (2.54 centimeters) pins that have to be put in," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center. But just like at Kennedy, the aft skirt and the SRM did not just snap together. Tuesday's lift and lowering of the port or left side SRM took about an hour to complete. (Image credit: California Science Center)Īt the California Science Center, the SRM segments were mated together as a single tower before being hoisted atop their respective aft skirts. Two cranes outside of the California Science Center begin the lift of a solid rocket motor for the vertical display of the space shuttle Endeavour, on Tuesday, Nov. That lift has many complexities, but it is being done within the walls of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, just like every other pair of boosters to fly. Take for example, the pair of solid rocket boosters that NASA is now beginning to stack for its Artemis 2 mission, the first launch to send humans to the moon in more than 50 years. Tuesday's lift of the solid rocket motor (SRM) was both reminiscent of something NASA has done more than 140 times before and, at the same time, a first in history. The stacking procedure - standing the booster atop its previously placed aft skirt inside the construction site for the science center's new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center - was the first major lift in a three-part series that will result in the world's only vertical exhibit of an authentic space shuttle. 7), as cranes lifted the first of two solid rocket motors into the vertical at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The future museum display of NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour took a giant step upwards on Tuesday (Nov.
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