The first segment for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a behemoth booster designed to send astronauts on expeditions into deep space, has arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) was transported from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where it had been undergoing final testing and checkout since arriving in February, to the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy. The ICPS will be located at the very top of the SLS, just below the Orion capsule.
During Exploration Mission-1, NASA’s first test mission of the SLS rocket and Orion, the ICPS, filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, will give Orion the big in-space push needed to fly beyond the moon before returning to Earth over the course of about a three-week mission.
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