The second piece of flight-hardware for NASA’s new exploration-class rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on April 3. The Orion Stage Adapter (OSA) traveled to Kennedy aboard NASA’s Super Guppy aircraft from the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where it was built.
The stage adapter will connect the Orion spacecraft to the upper part of the SLS rocket known as the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or ICPS. The ICPS is a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen-based upper space stage that will give the spacecraft the push needed to go to deep space.
On its first launch, the OSA will double as a secondary payload carrier, delivering 13 mini ships on as many deep space missions. These small but mighty scientific investigations include 10 satellites from U.S. industry, government, and commercial partners, as well as the three CubeSats being built by international partners.
Both the OSA and ICPS are being stored for processing in Kennedy’s Space Station Processing Facility in preparation for Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated launch of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft.
Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett