Next year, NASA hopes to launch the first humans back to the moon in over 50 years. Thousands of people across the country are currently working on various flight hardware, including engineers at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility, who are now installing the 4 main engines of the giant SLS rocket that will help send the crew on their voyage.
Installation of the first RS-25 engine follows the joining of all five major structures that make up the 212-ft SLS core stage earlier this year, which will hold the avionics and propellants for the engines.
Engines rich with space shuttle history
Two of the four engines for Artemis-II previously launched space shuttles, including this first one, E2059. The other two engines to be installed later will be new engines that include some previously flown hardware.
The engines are all updated and modified from their space shuttle days for the performance needed by the giant rocket. They produce more power, and are adapted to the hotter, more violent and extreme operating environment. They all have new controllers (brains), and additional insulation to protect them during the 8 minutes that they’ll be firing on launch, guzzling 1,500 gallons of fuel per second.
Artemis-1 flew a virtually flawless uncrewed mission to the moon and back last year. They experienced some issues with hydrogen leaks in the first several countdowns, but eventually were able to fix the issue and proceed to flight. It was a dress rehearsal for Artemis-II, testing and validating everything from ground support, countdown, launch and flight and reentry.
The mission ended with a textbook splashdown of the Orion capsule off the coast of California, where the US Navy retrieved it to return to NASA.
The crew
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen are currently training for their moonshot on Artemis-II.
Glover is the mission’s pilot. He paid a visit to Michoud to witness the first engine being installed on the rocket that will send him and his crewmates to the moon.
The mission
Their mission is scheduled to last 10 days, and will be very much like Apollo 8. The crew will orbit the moon, but not land on it. Artemis-II is critical in that it will pave the way for the first landing on Artemis-III in the coming years.
NASA hopes to have all 4 main engines installed on the Artemis-II rocket within the next several weeks. The giant core stage will then eventually be prepared for shipping to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be integrated with other flight hardware and the Orion spacecraft.
Launch is slated for November 2024.
