Critical design review of SLS in the Rocket City
HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - It hasn't happened here in Huntsville in almost 40 years.
It was 1976, when NASA engineers gathered to look at the schematics on the new Space Transportation System. Its missions were labeled STS, followed by a number.
The vehicle itself was known simply as "the shuttle."
Now, again, hundreds of key decision makers from across NASA's centers have descended on the Marshall Space Flight Center for three days of intense discussion on the status of the Space Launch System, or SLS.
Tuesday was Day 2 of the conference - "The kickoff," according to Space Launch System Program Manager Todd May, the Critical Design Review for NASA's deep space rocket.
It's here that the "checklist" is developed - what's needed before you move out of the design phase.
"It's like you're building a house," May explained, "and you want to make a punch list before you turn the keys over. It's time to move to manufacturing, assembling, integration and test" of the rocket.
During the CDR, engineers analyze the entire rocket, nose to aft, before they move to the full manufacturing phase.
Some sections of SLS are already in production, as we've reported previously, but the core stage is brand new.
"We've made a few minor changes," May said. "Take the booster itself: We've used value-stream mapping to make it more efficient and we also found a better way of filling in the bond line to fill in the voids between the insulation and the propellant, so there are no voids now. We're also manufacturing the core stage in a completely different way from the external tank on the shuttle."
May says NASA is welding the core stage vertically on the SLS, not horizontally, like the shuttle. After these three days of the CDR "kickoff," May says NASA moves to three months of analysis, paperwork, and more discussion.
The Design Certification Review will take place in two years, in 2017. That certifies that the design will work and can fly. The last phase before SLS flies is the Flight Readiness Review. That happens in the days and weeks before launch.
There is then a wet dress rehearsal for flight and then flight itself, now scheduled for the summer of 2018.
But what will fly? Will it be SLS or a rocket by another name? A mission by another name?
We asked May if the rocket will continue to be called SLS. He said, "Eventually, I would expect SLS may get a name. SLS is a very functional name. STS, the Shuttle, flew for 30 years with that name. I'm not worried about the name of that rocket. We just want to get it built and make sure it works."
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