This week, NASA has announced that they are moving towards the first launch attempt for the Artemis I mission with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft currently in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA is currently targeting launch for no earlier than Monday, Aug. 29, at 8:33 a.m. EDT during a 2 hour window!!!!! So, Dean and Beth dig right in to the who, what, where, when, why and how of NASA’s Space Launch System on this week’s episode of the Casual Space Podcast! 

NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) is the world’s most powerful rocket and the backbone of NASA’s human lunar exploration program (check out this reference guide ASAP: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/sls_reference_guide_2022_v2_508_0.pdf). No other rocket can send astronauts and the Orion spacecraft directly to the Moon for the Artemis missions. SLS provides an unmatched capability to deliver greater mass and volume than any current launch vehicle for both human and robotic exploration of the Moon, Mars, and the outer planets. SLS was established by the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. The program was created at Marshall in 2011 and received funding in FY2012. SLS is the world’s first exploration-class launch vehicle since the Apollo Program’s Saturn V. Along with SLS, NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate is developing the EGS and the Orion spacecraft for crew. Orion, managed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts on exploration missions into deep space. EGS has converted facilities at Kennedy into a next-generation spaceport capable of supporting launches by multiple types of vehicles. 

More about NASA’s SLS: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html