NASA shows off SLS hardware made in Alabama, bound for deep space (al.com)
Updated Feb 1; Posted Feb 1
By Lee Roop
NASA's new Space Launch System has some big missions planned. It will carry astronauts back to the moon, and it could carry big science instruments like the Europa Clipper to Jupiter in half the current travel time.
But the focus in Huntsville this week wasn't on the big things SLS could do. It was on 13 cubesats slightly bigger than a shoebox and the adapter built in Alabama to launch them from the first SLS flight around the moon.
"It's hardware built at Marshall Space Flight Center and designed by an engineer who grew up here," said Andy Schorr, assistant manager of the SLS Spacecraft Payload Integration and Evolution Office. "It shows we can be adaptable, we can be agile. We're extremely proud of it."
Shore was talking at a media preview of a stage adapter and launch platform 5 feet tall and 18 feet wide. It was built at Marshall of curved aluminum alloy plates using friction stir welding, a process that basically melts and blends the edges of the plates into a single piece.
The adapter will sit on top of first SLS test rocket just below the Orion capsule and hold the cubesats until time to launch them into deep space at a series of what NASA calls "bus stops" favorable to each experiment.
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more: http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2018/02/nasa_shows_off_sls_space_hardw.html
(Click on the 23 in the center of the graphic for lots of photos. Can't copy and paste.)
