NASA Kennedy Ground Systems prepares hardware for Artemis II and beyond

A Bechtel National team uses a crane to lift Module 4 into position atop the mobile Launcher 2 tower chair on January 3, 2025, on the park grounds at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Module 4 is the first of seven modules that will be stacked vertically to form the approximately 400-foot launch tower used from the Artemis IV mission. Credit: Bechtel National Inc./Allison Sijgers
NASA teams are gaining momentum as work progresses toward future lunar missions for the benefit of humanity, with numerous flights from around the world for the first manned Artemis flight test and subsequent lunar missions. The hardware has arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Additional structures will soon appear on Kennedy’s skyline as the team builds the necessary ground systems to support them.
The crew is preparing for the Artemis II flight in parallel with the construction of NASA’s Mobile Launcher 2 tower, which will be used during the launch of the SLS (Space Launch System) Block 1B rocket starting with the Artemis IV mission. Masu. This version of NASA’s rocket uses a more powerful upper stage to launch with a crew and more cargo on a lunar mission. Engineers began testing the upper stage’s umbilical connections, which will help deliver fuel and other supplies to the rocket while on the launch pad.
In summer 2024, NASA engineers and contractor Bechtel National completed a milestone called jack-and-set. There, the center’s giant crawler transporter relocated Mobile Launch Pad 2’s first steel base assembly from temporary shoring to six trestles. Permanent pedestal near Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
“The NASA Bechtel Mobile Launcher 2 team is ahead of schedule and gaining momentum each day,” said Darrell Foster, NASA Exploration Ground Systems Program Ground Systems Integration Manager at NASA Kennedy. “In parallel with all the progress at our main construction site, the remaining tower modules are being assembled and equipped at a second construction site in the centre.”
As construction of Mobile Launcher 2’s base continues, assembly efforts will transition to integrating the modules that will make up the tower. In mid-October 2024, crews completed installation of the chair, named for its resemblance to a giant seat. The chair serves as an interface between the base deck and the vertical modules that make up the tower, which is 80 feet tall.
In December 2024, the team completed the operation of Rig and Set Module 4, with the first of a total of seven 40-foot-tall modules stacked on top of the chair. Bechtel workers rigged the module to a heavy-lift crane, lifted it more than 150 feet, and secured the four corners of the tower chair. When completed, the entire mobile launcher will reach approximately 400 feet in height. This is approximately the length of four Olympic-sized swimming pools lined up.
On the other side of the center, a test team at the Launcher Test Facility is testing a new umbilical interface that will be installed on Mobile Launcher 2, which will be needed to support the new SLS Block 1B exploration upper stage. The umbilical is a connecting line that provides fuel, oxidizer, pneumatics, instrumentation, and electrical connections from the mobile launcher to the upper stage and other elements of the SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
“All ambient temperature tests have been successfully completed and the team is now beginning cryogenic tests in which liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen are flowed through the umbilical cord to verify acceptable performance.” Kennedy’s NASA Launch said Kevin Jumper, laboratory manager for the equipment testing facility. “The Exploration Upper Stage Umbilical team has made significant progress in checkout and validation testing of the Mobile Launcher 2 umbilical.”
The test will include extension and retraction of the umbilical cord arm of the exploration upper stage, which will be installed on Mobile Launcher 2. The test team remotely retracts the umbilical arm, confirms the expected separation of the ground and flight umbilical plates, and simulates the following movements: This is done at liftoff.
Source: NASA Kennedy Ground Systems Preparing Hardware for Artemis II and Beyond (January 20, 2025) from https://phys.org/news/2025-01-nasa-kennedy-ground-prepping-hardware.html Retrieved January 21, 2025
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