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Space Launch System Highlights National Aeronautics and Space Administration 2 0 1 5 SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM HIGHLIGHTS THE YEAR IN REVIEW www.nasa.gov 2015 Space Launch System Highlights Collected SLS Highlights from January – December 2015 January: 1 RS-25 Engine Testing Blazes Forward for NASA’s Space Launch System • Space Launch System Booster Ready to Fire • Spaceflight Partners: Dynetics • Mini Models Fire Up for SLS Base Heating Tests • Composite Booster gets a Burst of Energy February: 9 Welcome to SLS Boosters 101 • Eruptions Evicted: Anti-geyser Testing Completed for SLS Liquid Oxygen Tank • The State of the Programs • Spaceflight Partners: Alcoa Forgings and Extrusions • NASA Representatives Visit Louisiana to See Pegasus Progress • NASA, Orbital ATK Preparing Solid Rocket Booster Avionics for Mission Success March: 15 NASA’s Space Launch System Booster Passes Major Ground Test • Spaceflight Partners: Moog Inc. • Fabrication Complete on SLS Core Stage Simulator Test Article • NASA Shaking Things Up for Space Launch System at Redstone Test Center • Faces of SLS • SLS is Fired Up April: 21 NASA, Orbital ATK Tackle Tough Booster Issues before Successful Ground Test • Massive Tank for SLS Advanced Booster Concept Moves to Mississippi for Testing • Spaceflight Partners: Teledyne Brown Engineering • Cameras at SLS Booster Test will Provide Critical Data for Rocket’s First Flight • Pegasus Barge Work Continues on the Bayou • Executive Leadership Changes • EmpowHERing Women May: 27 Space Launch System Program Moves Forward with Critical Design Review • Steamy Summer Begins for SLS with RS-25 Test • Some Assembly Required: The Newest RS-25 Joins the Space Launch System Family • Spaceflight Partners: Ultimate Hydroforming Inc. • SLS Booster Work Continues Well After Smoke Clears from Major Test • Milestone Work Under Way on B-2 Test Stand June: 33 We have Ignition: SLS RS-25 Engine Fires Up for Two More Tests in Series • Selective Laser Melting Can Cut Time, Costs for SLS RS-25 Engine Parts • SLS Inspires at NASA on the Square • Spaceflight Partners: LNT Powdered Metal Inc. and Synertech Powdered Metal Inc. • Added Support in the Middle for SLS Booster Qualification Test July: 39 NASA’s Space Launch System Design ‘Right on Track’ for Journey to Mars • Pedal to the Metal – RS-25 Engine Revs Up Again • Spaceflight Partners: Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense Co. • Aft Segment Cast for Second SLS Booster Qualification Test • Space Camp Hall of Fame • Construction ‘Fueling’ Up for SLS Core Stage Hydrogen Tank • The Force Was With Us at San Diego Comic-Con 2015 Cover: Artist concept of SLS on launch pad (NASA/MSFC) August: 47 The Journey to Mars Continues with Final RS-25 Tests of the Series • SLS Program Manager Todd May Named Deputy Director of Marshall Center • NASA Stennis Marks Milestone in Return to Deep-Space Missions • Learn More about RS-25 • Spaceflight Partners: CRM Solutions Inc. September: 53 The Heat Goes On as Engineers Start Analysis on SLS Base Heating Test Data • Construction Begins on Test Version of Important Connection for SLS • Twice as Nice: NASA, Orbital ATK Prepare for Second SLS Booster Ground Test • Spaceflight Partners: Cobham Mission Systems • Faces of SLS • Steel Swings for New SLS Test Stand at NASA Marshall • NASA Tests Provide Rare Opportunity to Get 3-D Printed Part Comparison Data • Go behind the scenes of building the world’s most powerful rocket with our blog, Rocketology! • Celebrating a Servant’s Heart October: 59 NASA Completes Critical Design Review for Space Launch System • NASA Names John Honeycutt SLS Program Manager • More Than 50 Pieces of Hardware Completed for SLS Core Stage Tanks • Spaceflight Partners: Honeywell • Faces of SLS November: 63 NASA Marks Completion of Test Version of Key SLS Propulsion System • Getting Ready to Fly • AMRO Fabricating Corp. Lining up Panels for NASA’s Space Launch System • NASA Awards Contract to Restart Development of Engines to Power Agency’s Journey to Mars • Faces of SLS • Progress Continues on Test Version of SLS Adapter • No Small Steps December: 69 Going Up: Bolden Sees Progress on SLS Test Stand • Operation Insulation: NASA Marshall Prepares for SLS Foam Testing • Faces of SLS • NASA Marshall’s John Hanson Wins AIAA Award for Work on SLS Rocket • Be an Astronaut! • Spaceflight Partners: JBS Solutions National Aeronautics and Space Administration JANUARY 2015 SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM HIGHLIGHTS RS-25 Engine Testing Blazes Forward for NASA’s Space Launch System The new year is off to a hot start for SLS! The engine that will drive America’s next great rocket to deep space blazed through its first successful test January 9 at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The RS-25 fired up for 500 seconds on the A-1 test stand at Stennis, providing NASA engineers critical data on the engine controller unit and inlet pressure conditions. This is the first hot fire of an RS-25 engine since the end of space shuttle main engine testing in 2009. (NASA/Stennis) (Continued on page 2) www.nasa.gov Space Launch System Booster Ready to Fire A full-scale version of the booster for SLS is ready to fire for a major ground test and is paving the way on NASA’s journey to Mars. The two-minute, full-duration static test — scheduled for March 11 at booster prime contractor ATK’s test facility in Promontory, Utah — is a huge milestone for the program and will qualify the booster design for high temperature conditions. This type of test typically only comes after multiple years of development and signifies major progress being made on the rocket. Once this test and a second, low-temperature test planned for early 2016 are complete, the hardware is qualified and ready for the first flight of SLS. (ATK) RS-25 Engine Testing (cont’d) “It was the culmination of a tremendous amount of work at early-January facility outage at the A-1 stand. The team Marshall, at Aerojet Rocketdyne and especially at Stennis thoroughly assessed the issue and decided to proceed, Space Center,” Liquid Engines Manager Steve Wofford concluding that the risk to the test engine and the chance said. “It was a great team accomplishment. I told our team of a premature engine shutdown were low. Ultimately, it that the engine ran on hydrogen, oxygen and especially required close cooperation among program, institutional on the hard work, dedication, and attention to detail from and even commercial interests to carry out the test before them.” the scheduled test stand shutdown. The entire engine/test team faced several challenges to “It was also a good study in risk management and the refurbish the test stand, develop a new engine controller willingness to carefully assess, understand and accept a and modify and test an RS-25 for the first time since 2009. bit of elevated technical risk in order to achieve this major milestone for the engine office and SLS,” said Bill Hill, A technical issue that surfaced before the holiday break deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems threatened to push the test date beyond a planned Development. 2 Spaceflight Partners: Dynetics EDITOR’S NOTE: Every month, SLS Highlights turns the spotlight on one of the many industry partners helping to create the largest rocket ever built for human space exploration. In this issue, we profile Dynetics of Huntsville, Alabama. Dynetics of Huntsville, Alabama, is supporting Boeing on work for the SLS core stage. (Dynetics) Dynetics, an employee-owned, engineering and SLS, these structural tests executed at NASA’s manufacturing company, is supporting Boeing in the Marshall Space Flight Center will validate design and manufacture and assembly of the intertank forward analysis activities and help qualify the SLS core stage and the liquid hydrogen aft SLS structural test design for flight loads. simulators. These simulators emulate mechanical properties for structural testing of the core stage Dynetics also is working with Boeing on the intertank and liquid hydrogen tank. The intertank and development of the SLS core stage thrust vector liquid hydrogen tank are part of the SLS core stage, control exhaust gas heat exchanger. The heat which will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid exchanger will use cold gas from the exhaust of oxygen that will feed the vehicle’s RS-25 engines. the core stage auxiliary power unit to maintain an Boeing is designing, developing and manufacturing acceptable temperature range for the hydraulic fluid, the 200-foot core stage for NASA. used in the thrust vector control system. Each of the seven simulators used in structural tests In addition, Dynetics provides engineering support for are constructed in eight segments that form 27.6 the analysis and integration of the propulsion system. foot diameter barrels. Dynetics will build two of those This includes thrust vector control performance barrels using its Research and Development and analysis, as well as design and integration support for Solutions Complexes in Huntsville, Alabama. the propulsion system. As a required step before the first flight test of the 3 Mini Models Fire Up for SLS Base Heating Tests A 2-percent scale model of the SLS core stage RS-25 engines, in the two pictures below, and a model of the SLS without the twin boosters, right, is used for nominal, core-stage-only testing at CUBRC, Inc. in Buffalo, New York. NASA is working in close collaboration with CUBRC to test mini models of the SLS propulsion system and entire vehicle in a shock tunnel at the facility. The test series will provide data on the convective heating environments that the base of the rocket will experience upon ascent. That data will be used to verify flight hardware design environments and set specifications for the design of the rocket’s base thermal protection system. (NASA/MSFC) 4 Composite Booster gets a Burst of Energy Turning a rocket booster case into spaghetti sounds more like magic than engineering, but a test that did just that could be an important step in the future of human space exploration.
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