Wednesday, July 25, 2012

SLS passes major review

NASA illustration
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Space Launch System, which will launch humans farther into space than ever before, passed a major NASA review Wednesday with completion of a combined System Requirements Review and System Definition Review. SLS now moves ahead to its preliminary design phase. The SLS will launch NASA's Orion spacecraft and other payloads, and provide a new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the SLS program. The RS-25 core stage and J-2X upper-stage rocket engine in development by Rocketdyne for the two-stage SLS will be tested at NASA's Stennis Space Center, Miss. Testing has already begun on the J-2X. The Boeing Co. in Huntsville is designing the SLS core stage, to be built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and tested at Stennis Space Center before being shipped to Kennedy Space Center, Fla. (Sources: NASAPRNewswire, 07/25/12) Previous