Volume 17 Issue 8 www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis August 2021 Stennis Team Lifts SLS Core Stage to Success See page 5 Page 2 LAGNIAPPE August 2021 hen I find myself by a warm body of water, My personal favorite memory of 2020, you ask? The it is only natural that I lounge around. I love time I got to stand in the B-2 Test Stand at Stennis Wsoaking up the sunshine, sipping on a sweet Space Center, watching my friends make history. Shirley Temple – Nana’s secret recipe, of course. Shh! It is too good to share. In early 2020, the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) was shipped on site, where it was lifted I usually try to keep my thoughts casual during this by two cranes and put into the testing facility. The time, focusing on that movie I watched last week or process took a good part of two whole days. that song I keep humming. But when I find myself thinking about the last year and a half, my thoughts Can you imagine? Seeing the size of that giant piece tend to be a little deeper. of machinery, suspended over 200 feet above the ground, was jaw-dropping. It made me feel like an ant. Thinking about the year 2020, it is hard not to get lost in the chaos. With a year defined by the world- Looking at the size of the shiny SLS core stage made wide COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to imagine that me realize how small the world is in which we live. For anything could get crazier than that, but it did – does me, the heavy-lift article is a moment of brightness anyone remember those big, scary hornets? when the world felt dark, a shining reminder that the bad will not always be bad. All you have to do is take I was personally hoping to catch one as a nice little a step back and appreciate the small things, but when snack – Ark! the big things come, appreciate them more. Anyway, when my mind gets overwhelmed, I try to If you do not have a good memory from the last year, remember the good things that my time in quarantine that is okay. Do not worry; your moment will come gave me – all the yummy food I got to eat, the time I soon. But while you wait, feel free to turn to page 5 got to spend with Nana Gator, and the shows I got to and relive my moment with me. Maybe the light will catch up on. shine a little on you, too. Lagniappe is published monthly by the Office of Communications at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center. Access monthly copies at: www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/news/publications/index.html Contact info – (phone) 228-688-3749; (email) [email protected]; (mail) NASA OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS, Attn: LAGNIAPPE, Mail code IA00, Building 1100 Room 304, Stennis Space Center, MS 39529 Subscribe at: https://lists.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/stennis-space-center-lagniappe Managing Editor – Lacy Thompson Editor – Kaylan Courteaux Staff Photographer – Danny Nowlin Page 3 LAGNIAPPE August 2021 NASA’s MOON to MARS MISSION NASA Continues RS-25 Testing with Sixth Installment at Stennis Space Center NASA conducted its sixth RS-25 single-engine hot fire Aug. 5 on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center, a continuation of its seven- part test series to support develop- ment and production of engines for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on future missions to the Moon. Operators fired the engine for more than eight minutes (500 sec- onds), the same amount of time RS- 25 engines need to fire for launch of the SLS rocket. Four RS-25 engines, with a pair of solid rocket boosters, will help power SLS at launch. NASA already has tested engines for the rocket’s first four Artemis missions to the Moon, allowing operators to turn their focus towards collecting data to demonstrate and verify various engine capabilities for future engines. Along with providing performance data to Aerojet Rocketdyne, lead contractor for the SLS engines, the Aug. 5 test enabled the team to evaluate new engine components manufactured with cutting-edge and cost-saving technologies, eliminate operating risks, and enhance engine production. In addition to operating the engine at 109% of its original power level for extended periods during the hot fire, NASA verified new manufacturing processes while evaluating the performance of the en- gine’s low-pressure fuel turbopump. The pump significantly boosts the pressure of liquid hydrogen delivered to the high-pressure fuel turbopump to help prevent cavitating, the forming of “bubbles” or “voids”, which can col- lapse or cause shock waves that may damage machinery. NASA is building SLS as the world’s most powerful rocket to send the agency’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon. With Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface and establish long-term ex- ploration on the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars. SLS and Orion, along with the commercial hu- man landing system and the Gateway outpost in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission. An integrated team conducts RS-25 tests at Stennis Space Center, including NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Syncom Space Services, the prime contractor of Stennis facilities and operations. Page 4 LAGNIAPPE August 2021 A dramatic triplet of galaxies takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which captures a three-way gravitational tug- of-war between interacting galaxies. This system – known as Arp 195 – is featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a list which showcases some of the weirder and more wonderful galaxies in the universe. Observing time with Hubble is extremely valuable, so astronomers do not want to waste a second. The schedule for Hubble observations is calculated using a computer algorithm which allows the spacecraft to occasionally gather bonus snapshots of data between longer observations. This image of the clashing triplet of galaxies in Arp 195 is one such snapshot. Extra observations such as these do more than provide spectacular images – they also help to identify promising targets to follow up with using telescopes such as the upcoming NASA/Euro- pean Space Agnecy/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. NASA in the News Mars Helicopter Awarded Laureate Hubble Finds Evidence of Water Vapor The “little helicopter that could” has garnered atten- For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence tion, fans, and numerous accolades, with the latest of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon, coming from Aviation Week Network in the form of Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the a 2021 Laureate Award. The Laureate Awards honor moon’s surface sublimates – that is, turns from solid to “extraordinary achievements in aerospace.” When the gas. Previous research has offered circumstantial evidence 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) rotorcraft hovered on Mars for that Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, 39.1 seconds on April 19, 2021, it was the first instance contains more water than all of Earth’s oceans. However, of powered, controlled flight on another planet – a true temperatures there are so cold that water on the surface is Wright brothers moment. Since then, Ingenuity has frozen solid. Ganymede’s ocean would reside roughly 100 chalked up 11 flights, with a total distance of just over miles below the crust; therefore, the water vapor would 1 mile (2.2 kilometers), reaching an altitude record of not represent the evaporation of this ocean. Astrono- 40 feet (12 meters) in its 10th sortie. Ingenuity hitched mers re-examined Hubble observations from the last a ride to the Red Planet on Perseverance, which landed two decades to find this evidence of water vapor. This on Feb. 18, 2021. It was designed as a technology dem- finding adds anticipation to the European Space Agency’s onstration and carries no science payloads on board. upcoming mission for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer Its mission was to prove that humanity can fly powered (JUICE). To see a full list of the Aviation Week Net- vehicles on Mars. The helicopter is paving the way for works 64th Annual Laureate Awards winners, click here. possible future missions. The Laureate award will be For more information about the water vapor evidence presented at a ceremony in October in McLean, Virginia. discovered on Jupiter’s Moon, click here. Page 5 LAGNIAPPE August 2021 Stennis Team Succeeds in Heavy-Lifting Work for SLS Core Stage Testing his summer, Olympic weightlifters broke records pursu- With the pathfinder replica, the team also discovered a need for ing gold medals in Japan. But in early 2020, another cable management. Several cables extended down from the Hy- Thistoric heavy lift took place on the other side of the dra Set Precision Load Positioner, a device that allows the team world for a prize to advance human space exploration. to raise and lower the stage in micro increments, and the master link device used to control the test article while it is in the air. A specialized team of professionals at NASA’s Stennis Space To remedy the issue, the team attached an arm to the “spider” – Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, defied gravity to a yellow lifting cap that allows the B-2 Test Stand derrick crane lift the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) – all to attach to the forward end of the test article.