NASA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine will meet with members of the Space Launch System (SLS) program on Thursday, Aug. 15th to discuss and view progress on the rocket and take questions from media at 11:30 a.m. CDT in front of SLS’s 212-foot-tall core stage.Â
Media is invited to accompany Bridenstine to visit to the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where engineers are preparing to add the final section to the core stage of the rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission.Â
Assembly of the core stage, the largest and most complex stage NASA ever has built, remains on schedule for completion before the end of the year. Comprised of two liquid propellant tanks and four RS-25 engines, it will produce more than two million pounds of thrust to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft, crew and cargo to the Moon.Â
NASA is working to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and supplies to the Moon on a single mission. The rocket, Orion spacecraft and Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration.Â
About Jim Bridenstine
NASA is led by Administrator Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s 13th administrator. Before joining NASA, Bridenstine served in the U.S. Congress, representing Oklahoma’s First Congressional District, serving on the Armed Services Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee. Bridenstine’s career in federal service began in the U.S. Navy, flying the E-2C Hawkeye off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
