Artemis II Launch Coming Together Written 27 September 2023

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports that the reigning title holder “for world’s most powerful rocket saw action on both its center core and its two solid rocket boosters this month, with pieces for the Artemis II launch coming together as NASA aims to send humans on a trip around the moon next year.” Arriving by train to Florida on Monday “were all 10 segments for the two side boosters of the Space Launch System rocket that will launch the Orion spacecraft with four humans on board from Kennedy Space Center as early as November 2024.” The booster’s core stage “remains in New Orleans, but teams last week installed the last of four converted space shuttle engines to the base of the stage.” The Boeing Company is the core stage’s primary contractor, and still “has more work to do before it can be shipped by barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility to KSC, currently on track for a November arrival, but the tail end finally got the last of its four R2-25 engines stuck in place.” Aerojet Rocketdyne, which “was recently acquired by Melbourne-based L3Harris, manufactured all four engines that were originally designed for the Space Shuttle Program, but have since been converted for use on the SLS.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)