SLS - space launch system (3-я попытка)

Автор Salo, 16.02.2012 10:25:55

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tnt22

ЦитироватьChris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 6 мин. назад

... RS-25s are arriving in Michoud! These RS-25's are Shuttle veterans. And before anyone says "But they'll end up at the bottom of the ocean" the only other option was to put them on display.
ЦитироватьNASA_SLS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_SLS 1 ч. назад

One of four special deliveries has arrived at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans for the #NASASLS core stage.
Here's a hint to what's inside >> http://go.nasa.gov/2WQHw6H 


tnt22

https://spacenews.com/contractors-continue-to-win-award-fees-despite-sls-and-orion-delays/
ЦитироватьContractors continue to win award fees despite SLS and Orion delays
by Jeff Foust — June 19, 2019


Boeing continued to receive high scores and millions in award fees for its work on the SLS despite problems with the core stage that have caused continued delays in that vehicle's first launch. Credit: NASA/Todd Boles

WASHINGTON — A new report fr om the Government Accountability Office found that the prime contractors for the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft received hundreds of millions of dollars in award fees despite continued issues that will likely lead to further delays in the programs.

The June 19 report, which included an unusually strong response fr om NASA, concluded that the agency should use upcoming contract negotiations with Boeing for the SLS, and Lockheed Martin for Orion, to find different ways to structure award fees "to incentivize contractors to obtain better outcomes."

"NASA's award fee plans for the SLS stages and Orion crew spacecraft contracts provide for hundreds of millions of dollars to incentivize contractor performance, but the programs continue to fall behind schedule and incur cost overruns," the report stated.

Boeing, for example, received $271 million in award fees over the life of its SLS contract, the report noted. That includes $146 million since NASA established formal cost and schedule baselines for the program, 81 percent of the total that Boeing could have earned.

Boeing received evaluation scores of "excellent" or "very good" since 2014, with the exception of the most recent period included in the report of October 2017 through September 2018, when it received a lower score of "good."

During that time, though, the schedule for the first SLS launch has slipped by several years. The GAO noted in its report that the program won't meet a planned June 2020 launch date because of ongoing issues, particularly with the development of the rocket's core stage. NASA officials have said there is six to 12 months of "risk" to that launch date, meaning it could slip to as late as June 2021.

Dennis Muilenburg, the president and chief executive of Boeing, didn't address the report in a June 19 speech at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston wh ere he discussed the company's various space activities, including SLS. "The first launch is next year, an uncrewed launch," he said.

At a meeting of a NASA Advisory Council committee May 28, Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA, said the agency was still trying to carry out the first SLS launch in 2020 even if decides to retain a "green run" static-fire test of the core stage. "Obviously, everything has to go perfectly" to maintain that 2020 launch date, he said, "but there's a shot."

The GAO report suggested that NASA and Boeing were blaming each other for the delays in the SLS development. NASA said that Boeing didn't hire enough technicians to work on the core stage, initially assigning 100 people before eventually increasing that to 250. Boeing countered that NASA provided new estimates of the loads the stage would experience after critical design review, changes significant enough "that they invalidated legacy systems Boeing had planned to use, which required rework."

The GAO also criticized NASA for underestimating the cost increases in the SLS program. According to the agency, the cost of SLS development has grown by a little more than $1 billion, or 14.7 percent, above its baseline cost estimate of $7.021 billion. The report noted, though, that during a replanning effort in late 2017 NASA shifted some costs associated with getting SLS ready for its first launch to later in the program. That in effect reduced the baseline cost by $782 million, making the effective cost increase now 29 percent. That is close to the 30 percent threshold for cost overruns wh ere a program must be formally reauthorized by Congress.

The report identified problems as well with the Orion program as well as Exploration Ground Systems, which includes the mobile launcher and other equipment and services needed to support SLS/Orion launches. Lockheed Martin has earned $294 million in Orion award fees over the course of its contract, including $88 million, or 93 percent of the total available, since its confirmation review.

"The Orion program is not on schedule to meet the June 2020 launch date for the first mission," the report stated, in part because of delays in the European-built service module. The spacecraft's crew module, though, is "nearly [on] the critical path" because of component failures in its avionics system found during testing.

In an eight-page letter included in the report as NASA's response, Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, vigorously defended the agency's handling of SLS, Orion and ground systems.

"The GAO report does not acknowledge NASA is constructing some of the most sophisticated hardware ever built," he wrote. As he has done in the past, he said that the problems NASA and its contracts have encountered "are commensurate with first-time production programs on a large scale and should not be unexpected."

"The GAO report repeatedly projects the worst-case scenario outcome," he wrote later in the letter, adding that NASA "does take exception to the unnecessarily negative language used in the report title and section headings and the lack of acknowledgement of progress the Agency has made."

Despite that criticism, Gerstenmaier said that NASA concurred, partially or entirely, with the four recommendations that the GAO made, ranging from adjusting the SLS cost baseline to reevaluating strategies for incentive awards to its contractors.

The GAO, which usually limits its reaction to agency responses to how they accepted the report's recommendations, included several additional comments regarding the NASA letter, including one about the use of worst-case scenarios. The GAO responded that senior NASA officials told them a June 2020 launch was "unlikely" because of development issues.

"It would be misleading for us to continue to report the June 2020 launch date when we were told there was substantive risk to that date," the report stated. "We then used the information NASA provided us to report that the first launch may occur as late as June 2021, if all risks are realized."
Отчет GAO-20190619 - 4.3 MB, 60 стр, 2019-06-19 12:28:14 UTC

tnt22

ЦитироватьChris G - NSF‏ @ChrisG_NSF 5 мин. назад

Next week, @NASAKennedy will roll the @NASA_SLS Mobile Launcher out to Pad-B for tests & validations, after which it will be ready for stacking the #Artemis1 mission. Read about all the work done to the ML recently to get it ready.
CLICK to read ARTICLE:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/06/egs-ml-1-validation-tests-pad/ ...


tnt22

ЦитироватьJeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 8 мин. назад

Boeing's Bill Beckman: finished engine section of SLS core stage last week, and it's now in subsystem testing. That will take a while before we join it to the core stage.

Чебурашка

#2024
Block IB надули до возможностей Saturn V
Сколько там было у дидов - 47 тонн для последних Аполлонов?

ЦитироватьBill Beckman, Boeing: SLS Block 1 will lift 95 MT to LEO/27 MT to TLI. Block 1B: 105 MT to LEO/45 MT to TLI. (No mention of Block 2 on this slide at least). Key enabler to deep space exploration.

tnt22

ЦитироватьNASA_SLS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_SLS 2 ч. назад

Happy first day of summer! The liquid hydrogen tank test article is summer ready at @NASA_Marshall because the tank's thermal protection "tans" from yellow to orange over time.

MORE >> http://go.nasa.gov/2Wwle9O 



tnt22

ЦитироватьNASA_SLS‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_SLS 20 июн.

On June 27, @NASA's mobile launcher will roll out to @NASAKennedy's Launch Pad 39B for three months of final testing as it gets ready for the launch of Artemis 1!

LEARN MORE >> http://go.nasa.gov/2WRxmCO 

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/media-invited-to-final-roll-of-mobile-launcher-before-artemis-1-moon-mission
ЦитироватьMedia are invited to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from 6 to 10 a.m. EDT Thursday, June 27, to view the agency's mobile launcher as it makes its final roll on crawler-transporter 2 to Launch Pad 39B prior to the launch of the first Artemis mission. A mobile launcher expert will be available to discuss the testing that will take place throughout the summer.

tnt22

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/media-invited-to-see-progress-on-nasa-s-space-launch-system-for-its-first-moon-mission
ЦитироватьJune 21, 2019
MEDIA ADVISORY M19-060

Media Invited to See Progress on NASA's Space Launch System for Its First Moon Mission


On May 30, 2019, the forward part and liquid hydrogen tank for the core stage of NASA's Space Launch System were connected to form most of the massive core stage that will propel SLS on NASA's first Artemis mission to the Moon.
Credits: NASA/Eric Bordelon

Media are invited to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans at 9:30 a.m. CDT Friday, June 28, to view progress on the rocket core stage for the Space Launch System's Artemis 1 Moon mission.

Media will have the opportunity to interview NASA officials, including Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard, Artemis 1 Mission Manager Mike Sarafin and astronaut Ricky Arnold. NASA experts involved in manufacturing and testing hardware for the first and second Artemis missions will provide facility tours and answer questions.

NASA is working to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, along with the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are the backbone for America's Moon to Mars exploration approach. The Space Launch System is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon on a single mission.
...
The event will begin with remarks by NASA officials in front of the core stage that will help send NASA's Orion spacecraft to the Moon on the Artemis 1 mission. NASA recently reached a significant milestone by assembling four-fifths of the huge core stage, and all four RS-25 engines will arrive at Michoud by the end of June. Soon, the engine section and engines will be attached to complete the core stage.

The massive core stage and its four RS-25 engines will produce 2 million pounds of thrust to help send Orion and its crew to the Moon. The liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank collectively hold 733,000 gallons of propellant to power the stage's engines.

-end-
Last Updated: June 21, 2019
Editor: Karen Northon

tnt22

ЦитироватьChris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 1 ч. назад

Over 10 years in the making. SLS ML-1 was designed to launch Ares 1. When Ares was canceled it was modified for SLS. It will only be able to launch Block 1 SLS rockets (without another round of major mods), so they will build another (ML-2) for SLS Block 1B.





tnt22

ЦитироватьChris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 16 мин. назад

FEATURE ARTICLE:
EGS preparing to roll ML-1 out to Pad 39B for Summer of testing -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/06/egs-ml-1-pad-summer-testing/ ...

- By Philip Sloss


tnt22

ЦитироватьJim Bridenstine‏Подлинная учетная запись @JimBridenstine 1 ч. назад

Very cool! The third RS-25 engine for the @NASA_SLS core stage has been delivered from @NASAStennis in Mississippi to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. This engine will ignite on Artemis-1, the first launch of SLS and @NASA_Orion.


tnt22

ЦитироватьStephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 57 мин. назад

The Mobile Launcher for NASA's Space Launch System is on the way to pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center this morning for testing.


tnt22

ЦитироватьThomas Burghardt‏ @TGMetsFan98 2 ч. назад

As the sun rises on the KSC, the launch platform will make its way all the way to pad 39B aboard the crawler transporter. There it will conduct a series of tests over a period of 3 months.




43 мин. назад

The 8 hour trip began at High Bay 3 of the VAB early this morning, and will culminate with final pad flow tests. These include countdown rehearsals and sound suppression water system testing, and will verify that ML-1 is ready to support the first launch of SLS: Artemis 1.





14 мин. назад

The piece near the top, protected by a blue tarp, is the crew access arm. It's the last place on Earth the astronauts will be before their mission to space, aboard the Orion spacecraft.




5 мин. назад

The water trucks spraying ahead of the crawler are there to reduce dust that could cause damage.




4 мин. назад

Humans for scale!


tnt22

ЦитироватьThomas Burghardt‏ @TGMetsFan98 2 мин. назад

Now you can see all the umbilical arms that will be used to load liquid hydrogen and oxygen, as well as provide power to the vehicle.


tnt22

ЦитироватьNASA's Kennedy Space Center‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASAKennedy 9 ч. назад

Traveling at a top speed of 2 mph, the crawler-transporter carries the 380-foot-tall Mobile Launcher to Launch Complex 39B.

The journey will take approximately eight hours

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1144244536497135617/pu/vid/1280x720/dvCdpt3t73n02KAy.mp4?tag=10 (0:04)

tnt22

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/last-test-article-for-sls-departs-maf.html
ЦитироватьJune 27, 2019

Last Test Article for NASA's SLS Rocket Departs Michoud Assembly Facility



The last of four structural test articles for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) was loaded onto NASA's Pegasus barge Wednesday, June 26, 2019, at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The barge will deliver the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank structural test article from Michoud to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for critical structural testing. The liquid oxygen tank is one of two propellant tanks in the rocket's core stage that will produce more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send Artemis 1, the first flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft and SLS, to the Moon. The nearly 70-foot-long test article is structurally identical to the flight version, which will hold 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen super cooled to minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit.

NASA is working to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS is part of NASA's backbone for deep space exploration, along with Orion and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and supplies to the Moon on a single mission.

Image Credit: NASA/Jude Guidry

Last Updated: June 27, 2019
Editor: Jennifer Harbaugh

tnt22

ЦитироватьSpaceflight Now‏ @SpaceflightNow 3 ч. назад

NASA's Mobile Launcher for the SLS rocket is making its way up the ramp to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center this morning to begin a series of tests and checkouts.




2 ч. назад

The SLS Mobile Launcher has climbed to the top of the launch pad 39B ramp against a stormy backdrop at the Kennedy Space Center.




55 мин. назад

The final roll of the SLS Mobile Launcher on to the launch pad is on hold until lightning warnings are lifted at Kennedy Space Center.


tnt22

ЦитироватьNASA's Exploration Ground Systems‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASAGroundSys 9 мин. назад

Look who's arrived in place at Launch Complex 39B! The team is now testing the mount load sensors on the pad with the mobile launcher.


tnt22

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/artemis-1-engines-delivered-to-nasa-s-michoud-assembly-facility.html
ЦитироватьJune 28, 2019

Artemis 1 Engines Delivered to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility



Crews delivered the last of four RS-25 engines for Artemis 1, the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, from NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans Thursday, June 27, 2019. The engines, located at the bottom of the rocket's massive core stage, are fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When Artemis 1 launches to the Moon, the four RS-25 engines will fire nonstop for 8.5 minutes, providing the rocket 2 million of its 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust at liftoff. Technicians from NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne, the lead contractor for the engines, at Michoud will now prepare the four engines for installation to the rest of the core stage later this summer.

NASA is working to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS is part of NASA's backbone for deep space exploration, along with Orion and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and supplies to the Moon on a single mission.

Image Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

Last Updated: June 28, 2019
Editor: William Bryan

tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/06/28/sls-mobile-launcher-moves-to-pad-39b-for-final-exams/
ЦитироватьSLS mobile launcher moves to pad 39B for final exams
June 28, 2019Stephen Clark


The Space Launch System's Mobile Launcher rolls down the crawlerway Thursday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida toward pad 39B. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

A towering mobile platform for the agency's Space Launch System arrived at launch pad 39B Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a sequence of water and propellant flow tests, swing arm checkouts and other rehearsals that should conclude with managers declaring the spaceport's ground systems ready to support the first SLS launch campaign by the end of the year.

The Mobile Launcher is a moving platform that will transfer the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System fr om the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. The $1 billion tower is one of the tallest structures in the Cape Canaveral area, and NASA originally built it for the Ares 1 rocket, a single-booster launcher that was cancelled in 2010 before it ever flew on an orbital mission.

The rollout of the Mobile Launcher to pad 39B this week caps nine months of electrical and mechanical testing inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. After checking the platform and tower's compatibility with the VAB, where the Space Launch System will be stacked, engineers now want to ensure it will work at the launch pad.

"It's that next big step right before the final exam, before we're done," said Cliff Lanham, NASA's senior project manager for the Mobile Launcher. "So we're all very excited. I know our operations group is ready to get ahold of it, so they can operating it with the rocket. Everybody's pumped about this."

But exactly when NASA can finally put the Mobile Launcher to use is hard to predict, officials said Thursday. Difficulties with the assembly of the Space Launch System's Boeing-built core stage in Louisiana have put in doubt a first launch of the new rocket in 2020, three years later than originally envisioned.

NASA is developing the Space Launch System to send astronauts on voyages to the moon — with a goal of a human landing there within five years — by way of a mini-space station the space agency plans to assemble in a high lunar orbit.

The space agency says the first SLS launch, without a crew on-board, could still happen before the end of 2020, but any technical problems discovered in several critical upcoming ground tests could delay the launch as late as June 2021, according to a Government Accountability Office report released earlier this month.

NASA officials said the rollout of the Mobile Launcher to pad 39B should be the last time the mammoth structure makes the trip to the launch pad before ground crews stack the Space Launch System on the platform in preparation for the first flight.
Спойлер

This illustration shows the components of the Space Launch System's Block 1 configuration, which is the version scheduled to fly on the rocket's first mission, designated Exploration Mission-1. Credit: NASA

The SLS core stage will be powered by four RS-25 main engines, two solid rocket boosters and an RL10 upper stage engine. At liftoff, the rocket will generate up to 8.8 million pounds of thrust.

The first SLS launch, designated Artemis 1, will send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a shakedown cruise to the moon and back. The Orion spacecraft and its service module will swing as close as 62 miles (100 kilometers) fr om the lunar surface, then loop into a more distant orbit around 40,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) from the moon before returning to Earth.

The second SLS/Orion flight, in 2022 or 2023, will carry astronauts on a looping trajectory around the moon and back to Earth, followed by the Artemis 3 mission in 2024, which could attempt the first landing on the moon by astronauts since 1972.

One of NASA's Apollo-era diesel-powered crawler-transporters carried the 10.5-million-pound Mobile Launcher from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building to pad 39B. Both facilities at the Florida spaceport were built in the 1960s for the Apollo moon program, and later modified for the space shuttle and the Space Launch System.

The crawler crew divided the 4.2-mile (6.8-kilometer) journey over two days, beginning around 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT) Thursday with rollout from High Bay 3 in the Vehicle Assembly Building, wh ere the tower has resided since last September. The Mobile Launcher trekked down the rock-covered crawlerway at a top speed of 0.8 mph — about 1.3 kilometers per hour, or 70 feet per minute — and arrived at the gate to pad 39B by late morning Thursday.

The Mobile Launcher finished the trip up the ramp to pad 39B on Friday morning. A laser alignment system helped the crawler crew guide the Mobile Launcher to the correct position, then lower it over six pedestals at the launch pad.

NASA plans to keep the Mobile Launcher at pad 39B until around the end of September. During the three-month campaign, engineers will run a series of tests, including swing arm retractions to mimic their function during a launch countdown, and pumping cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants through the structure's plumbing for the first time.


Workers at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans recently joined four of the five major sections of the SLS core stage. Technicians continue outfitting the core stage's engine section before it is ready to join the rest of the rocket. Credit: NASA

"What we'll do is we'll hook all our systems to the pad systems, and we'll test to make sure the Mobile Launcher and the pad work together properly," Lanham said. "We'll be testing, for instance, water flows, sound suppression, IOP (Ignition Overpressure) systems. We'll be doing cryo flows as well out there.

"We will be doing the crew access arm swings because in the VAB we can't fully test the swings of the arm, so we'll be testing those out there. We'll also be doing some end-to-end testing on the electrical systems. We'll make sure we can command from the LCC (Launch Control Center) all the way out to the pad," Lanham said. "We do have a simultaneous arm swing planned, wh ere we'll swing three of the arms together and make sure the hydraulic system can handle that."

Unlike the moving launch tables used by the space shuttle, the SLS mobile launcher includes a gigantic skyscraper-like structure on the platform itself. The 380-foot-tall (115-meter) Mobile Launcher features a metal tower atop a two-story base with six swing arms that will retract away from the rocket before launch.

In the shuttle era, pads 39A and 39B had fixed umbilical towers to provide astronauts, ground crews and swing arms access to the vehicle. The Apollo program's Saturn 5 moon rocket used a similar pad setup as the SLS, but the Saturn 5's mobile tower had nine swing arms.

The SLS tower and platform contain nearly 1,000 pieces of ground support equipment, routing power, data, water, propellants, air conditioning and other commodities to the launch vehicle and Orion crew capsule.

Once engineers finish the the tests at the launch pad this summer, the Mobile Launcher will return to High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building for a few final checkouts, including a demonstration in which cranes will stack dummy segments of an SLS booster on the platform for the first time.


The Space Launch System's Mobile Launcher at pad 39B on Friday. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

"This is a big day for us," said Darrell Foster, exploration ground systems integration manager at KSC. "From my perspective, this is our launch day ... From a hardware development standpoint, this is what we live for, these big milestones, and putting the pieces together. It's like a puzzle."

At launch pad 39B, workers have installed new heat-resistant bricks inside the flame trench, and put in a new flame director to shunt exhaust from the SLS main engines and solid rocket boosters toward the north at liftoff. NASA added new work platforms inside the VAB high bay to allow workers to reach the SLS during stacking and test operations.

NASA officials said the Mobile Launcher, along with newly-installed hardware at pad 39B and inside the VAB, should be ready to start the first SLS launch campaign by the end of the year.

NASA awards contract to build second SLS launch tower

While workers at Kennedy prepared for rollout of the SLS launch platform this week, NASA announced Tuesday that Bechtel National Inc., a Virginia company, will build a second Mobile Launcher to accommodate an upgraded, taller version of the Space Launch System.

Under a $383 million contract, Bechtel National will design, build, test and commission the second Mobile Launcher over a 44-month period beginning July 1. Officials expect the new launch tower, which will be built just outside the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC, to be ready by early 2023.

Congress appropriated funding for the second Mobile Launcher last year to fit a bigger version of the SLS named the Block 1B. The SLS Block 1B will have a wider second stage, with four engines instead of the single engine flying initial SLS missions.

Foster said NASA will give Bechtel National flexibility to redesign some parts of the Mobile Launcher as they begin work on the new structure. The swing arms will be built to print, and NASA will develop a new umbilical arm to feed propellants to the bigger SLS second stage, which is named the Exploration Upper Stage.

The SLS Block 1B could debut as soon as the Artemis 3 launch in 2024, allowing missions to the moon to carry heavier payloads. Meanwhile, NASA plans to rely on commercial rockets to launch modules for the Gateway, a mini-station around the moon that crews will use as a stopover and safe haven during lunar landing expeditions.

NASA spent $234 million building the original Mobile Launcher configured for the Ares 1 rocket, and the agency expects to have spent $753 million to modify the structure and outfit it for the Space Launch System, by the time of the Artemis 1 mission, according to reports from the Office of Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, and NASA's fiscal year 2020 budget request.

Agency officials chose to use the Ares 1 tower for the Space Launch System because they estimated it would be less expensive than modifying a space shuttle launch platform, or building a brand new structure.

While the second Mobile Launcher will be larger than the first, NASA officials expect it to be cheaper.

"We have tons of lessons learned from this one," Foster said. "ML-1 wasn't originally designed for SLS, so we had to do a lot of structural modifications, which added weight.

"We had to basically weld pieces on top of pieces to stiffen them more. With ML-2, we won't have to do that. We know our loads going in, we know what it's being designed for ... We're hoping, even though it's going to be a little bit taller, we're hoping it'll be lighter."
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