NASA Preparing to Roll Out Its SLS Megarocket Later This Week

—at long last—SLS is finally ready for the launch pad. Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director at NASA, said “we are in very good shape and ready to proceed with this roll on Thursday evening,”. To which he added: “It’s going to be just a wonderful, wonderful sight when we see that amazing Artemis vehicle cross the threshold of the [Vehicle Assembly Building] and we see it outside of that building for the very first time.

Weighing 5.75 million pounds, the fully stacked rocket—along with the Orion capsule nestled up top—will depart NASA’s Vehicleto 12 hours to complete, as NASA’s Crawler-Transporter 2, moving at less than 1 mile per hour, will slowly deliver the rocket to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The rocket’s arrival at the launch site will set the stage for the critically important wet dress rehearsal, during which time the rocket will be loaded with propellants and a practice countdown conducted and stopped just prior to ignition. The wet dress is currently scheduled for April 3.eight hours to load SLS with the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, whereas it took 2.5 hours to load the Space Shuttle, which used similar components.

So they roll it out, find a problem and roll it back in again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Is it reusable

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