MEDIA ADVISORY 18-032
Media Invited to View Space Launch System Progress with NASA Administrator
Using a specialized truck, structural test hardware for NASA's Space Launch System is moved to a Structural Strength Laboratory at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for structural testing. Delivered to Marshall via NASA's barge Pegasus from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans this spring, the intertank is the second of four core stage structural test articles scheduled for testing at Marshall.
Credits: NASA/Todd Boles
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 The test version of the SLS intertank at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is being pushed, pulled and bent with millions of pounds of force to ensure it can withstand the forces of launch and ascent. The test hardware is structurally identical to the flight version of the intertank that will connect the core stage's two colossal fuel tanks, serve as the upper-connection point for the two solid rocket boosters and house critical avionics and electronics. Credits: NASA/Todd Boles |
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will visit the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Wednesday, Aug. 15, for tours and briefings on human spaceflight testing and space station science operations, including critical structural tests underway for its new deep space rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS).
Bridenstine will view the test version of the SLS intertank at 1:30 p.m. CDT inside Marshall’s Structural Strength Laboratory in Building 4619, where testing is underway. Following the tour, the administrator will be available for a question-and-answer session with attending media. Media interested in covering Bridenstine’s visit should contact Jennifer Stanfield in the Marshall Office of Communications at 256-544-7199 at jennifer.stanfield@xxxxxxxx no later than 4 p.m. Monday, Aug 13.
Significant progress has been made on SLS, with many of the rocket’s major elements finished or nearing completion for Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated test of Orion, SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Media must report to the Redstone Arsenal Joint Visitor Control Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Research Park Boulevard, by 12:30 p.m. Aug. 15. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Media will need photo identification and proof of automobile insurance.
For more information on SLS, visit:
Press Contacts
Megan Powers
Headquarters, Washington
202-557-9558
megan.powers@xxxxxxxx
Jennifer Stanfield
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
jennifer.stanfield@xxxxxxxx
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