NASA Declares SLS Ready for Crewed Missions Written 3 February 2023

SPACE reports that NASA’s Space Launch System rocket “appears ready to take the next big step – launching astronauts. The debut SLS flight, on Nov. 16, kicked off NASA’s 25-day-long Artemis 1 mission, which sent an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back. ... An initial assessment of SLS’ Artemis 1 performance, which NASA released on Nov. 30, gave the rocket high marks, finding that it performed as expected in all areas. Mission team members have now had more time to crunch the numbers, and the reviews continue to be rave, suggesting that no big changes will be required ahead of the first crewed SLS launch.” In a January 27 update, NASA officials wrote, “Building off the assessment conducted shortly after launch, the preliminary post-flight data indicates that all SLS systems performed exceptionally and that the designs are ready to support a crewed flight on Artemis 2.”
Full Story (SPACE)