WASHINGTON -- NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier and other agency officials will debut a new machine for manufacturing NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and check on development progress with the heavy-lift rocket at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans Friday, June 21. <\/p>\n
NASA is inviting media representatives to attend a 9:15 a.m. CDT ribbon-cutting ceremony for the vertical weld center, where friction-stir weld tooling will be used to assemble the SLS core stage, then join officials on a tour of the SLS assembly area and work in support of NASA's Orion spacecraft. <\/p>\n
Michoud is critical to the construction and testing of SLS, which is managed and in development at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. <\/p>\n
Officials of The Boeing Company of Huntsville, Ala., prime contractor for the SLS core stage and its avionics, will take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The 200 foot-tall core stage will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to feed the rocket's RS-25 engines. The vertical weld center will stand about three stories tall and weigh 165 tons. <\/p>\n
Journalists who want to attend the event should contact Chip Howat at carl.j.howat@nasa.gov<\/a> or 504-214-6745 no later than 4 p.m. Thursday, June 20. Media must report to 13800 Old Gentilly Road and enter Gate 11, which is located east of Building 101, by 8:30 a.m. June 21 for access to the facility. Official media credentials with photo identification are required for access. <\/p>\n NASA is developing the SLS rocket and Orion to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. It will expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in the solar system, including to an asteroid and Mars. <\/p>\n For more information on NASA's SLS, visit: <\/p>\n http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/sls<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read the rest here: <\/p>\n NASA Invites Media to View Space Launch System Progress<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON -- NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier and other agency officials will debut a new machine for manufacturing NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and check on development progress with the heavy-lift rocket at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans Friday, June 21. NASA is inviting media representatives to attend a 9:15 a.m. Continue reading