The Space Launch System‘s core stage engine section structural qualification test article is stacked and prepared for shipment on the barge Pegasus from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama where it will be structurally tested. This marks the first delivery of a major SLS vehicle element manufactured at Michoud. The rocket’s engine section is the bottom of the core stage where the four RS-25 engines are attached. The engine section test article minus engines was vertically stacked with hardware on top that simulates part of the rocket’s liquid hydrogen tank that joins to the engine section at the bottom of the 212-foot-tall SLS core stage. The Pegasus barge also will transport the entire flight core stage to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, for testing and then on to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for integration into the SLS vehicle and launch.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC Michoud image: Jude Guidry