HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Huntsville plays a big role in the next mission around the moon and it all starts with this barge right here.
"We're here for the Artemis II launch, launch vehicle stage adapter. It's being loaded onto the barge." That barge is the Pegasus, and what it's carrying is this giant adapter.
"It's 27 1/2 feet tall. It's also the base diameter is 27 1/2 feet wide." The barge will ship the adapter to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans first. That's where crews will pick up additional hardware for future Artemis missions before traveling to NASA Kennedy in Florida.
After it arrives to Florida, the adapter will join the recently delivered core stage, and that's where teams with NASA's exploration ground systems will prepare the adapter for stacking and launch. "It's really a good thing for Artemis II to get ready down there to PSC to be stacked and hopefully one day real soon launch, which would be great."
"The way we will stack the SLS and Artemis mission with the Orion spacecraft is we'll get the mobile launcher back into the VAB, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and then we'll start stacking the booster segments to have to full boosters. And then we'll stack the core stage in between those. That's where the liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen are stored. And then on top of that, we'll stack this that we're rolling in today."
And the one thing some are most looking forward to is sending astronauts to the moon. Ramsey says safety of the astronauts is the number one priority followed by the mission objectives. "The most important thing is to keep the crew safe and get them back to earth safely."
The rocket is part of NASA's deep space exploration plans, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, gateway in orbit around the moon, and commercial human landing systems.