Crews are preparing to move a key adapter for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket out of Marshall Space Flight Center’s to the agency’s Pegasus barge. The adaptor is expected to roll out of the Alabama manufacturing facility on or about August 21, 2024.
The barge will first ferry the adapter to NASA’s Michoud Assembly facility, where it will pick up additional SLS hardware for future Artemis missions, and then travel to NASA Kennedy. In Florida, NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems teams will prepare the adapter for stacking and launch.
The cone-shaped launch vehicle stage adapter connects the rocket’s core stage to the upper stage and helps protect the upper stage’s engine that will help propel the Artemis II mission around the Moon.
Manufactured by prime contractor Teledyne Brown Engineering and the Jacobs Space Exploration Group’s ESSCA contract using NASA Marshall’s self-reacting friction-stir robotic and vertical weld tools, the launch vehicle stage adapter is the largest SLS component for Artemis II that is made at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
