Tag Archives: Space Launch System

Jim Bridenstine, an administrator at NASA, said the agency is working to validate potential costs for the Artemis crewed lunar exploration mission, Space News reported Wednesday. Bridenstine noted that the mission will cost between $20B to $30B and expenses may reach below the said range depending on the amount of contributions from commercial firms.

NASA and Boeing have assembled 80 percent of the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket to bring the Orion spacecraft to the moon as part of the Artemis 1 mission. The agency said Monday that the milestone comes after crews connected the hydrogen fuel tank to the SLS core stage’s upper part, which consists of the intertank, liquid oxygen propellant tank and the forward skirt housing the rocket’s flight computers.

NASA will still lift off the Space Launch System by 2020 if the vehicle's core stage is completed within this year and tests go according to schedule, Space News reported Wednesday. The space agency intends to retain the 2020 launch schedule amid static-fire test plans for SLS' core stage.

NASA conducted another test of its Space Launch System vehicle configuration at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., where the agency assessed the space vehicle’s aerodynamics through a set of wind tunnel tests, NASASpaceFlight.com reported Tuesday. The space agency launched 700 supersonic test runs using the SLS Block 1 Cargo vehicle at a speed of Mach 1.5 to 4.5.

NASA is planning to present its strategy for the 2024 moon landing mission to Congress in the coming weeks, Spaceflight Now reported Wednesday. NASA previously targeted a 2028 schedule to further develop a space complex in lunar orbit as well as a lunar lander. 

NASA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine said the agency needs to ramp up efforts to detect and identify near-Earth objects that could pose an impact risk, SpaceNews reported Monday. “We’re only about a third of the way there and the law that has been passed says that NASA is required to be able to detect, track and characterize not just one third but 90 percent of them, which means we have to use our systems, use our capabilities, to ultimately get a lot more data, and we have to do it faster,” he said Monday during his keynote speech at the Planetary Defense Conference in Maryland.

NASA completed tests for engine systems designed to support the deployment of the initial four Space Launch System rockets to space. Sixteen RS-25 engines underwent hot fire demonstrations have accumulated 14,700 seconds through 32 developmental tests since 2015, the agency said Friday. 

NASA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine testified during a Senate hearing that the agency plans to use a commercial rocket to launch the Orion crew capsule for a three-week mission to the Moon, The Verge reported Wednesday. Exploration Mission 1 was intended to be the debut launch of NASA’s Space Launch System, but has been continually delayed and was recently scheduled for a June 2020 launch.

NASA will receive $21.5B in fiscal year 2019 funds under an appropriations package that President Trump signed into law Friday, SpaceNews reported Sunday. The proposed appropriations for the agency reflect an increase of $1.6B over the administration’s original budget request.

NASA has confirmed Jody Singer, a 33-year agency veteran, as the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

The space agency said Friday Singer will oversee the installation’s civil service and contractor workforce and annual budget of $2.8B.