NASA's New Mega-Rocket (SLS), Orion Capsule on Track for Future Test Flights

Artist's rendering of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket being stacked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

Credit: NASA

A new era of space exploration, supported by a history-making new mega-rocket and a spacecraft designed to deliver humans into deep space, could be on the horizon for NASA.

The space agency is gearing up to build the largest and most powerful rocket in history.

The huge launcher, called the Space Launch System (SLS), will move a new spacecraft dubbed Orion, designed to send up to four astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before.

A short list of destinations includes the moon, nearby asteroids and, eventually, Mars.

Everyone is looking forward to 2021, the year when the first manned launch will occur but before that happens, the rocket and spacecraft will have to pass a number of tests.



Most powerful rocket ever
NASA's SLS rocket might remind some space fans of the mighty Saturn V rocket used to launch Apollo moon landing flights in the 1960s and 1970s; however, the new launcher will be more powerful.

NASA currently envisions the SLS in two configurations: one weighing 77 tons and able to lift more than 154,000 pounds, another weighing 143 tons and able to lift more than 286,000 pounds.

The smaller configuration, which is expected to carry a crew of astronauts, will create 8.4 million pounds of thrust, 10 percent more than the massive Saturn V rocket.

The larger configuration, which will carry cargo, will create 9.2 million pounds of thrust, 20 percent more than a Saturn V.

This version will be as tall as a 38-story building. The SLS will truly be a mountain of a machine.

For its power, the SLS will rely on two solid rocket boosters in addition to the huge, 200-foot-tall (61 meters) core stage, which will carry liquid hydrogen and oxygen to fuel four RS-25 rocket engine.

The RS-25 rocket engine is a workhorse: It powered the space shuttle and "operated with 100-percent mission success during 135 space shuttle missions," according to a NASA statement.

The power produced by the three engines is equal to that from 12 Hoover Dams.

NASA currently has a stockpile of 16 RS-25 rocket engines at the Stennis Space Center, in Mississippi.

The engines themselves had to be modified to put out more power than they did for the space shuttle missions, and therefore still require testing. Those tests will probably occur in mid-July, NASA has said.

NASA SLS Mega-Rocket Could Lead to Skylab 2 Deep Space Station

The original Skylab space station (left) launched atop a Saturn V moon rocket. Skylab II (right) would blast off atop NASA's Space Launch System.

CREDIT: NASA Images

NASA's first manned outpost in deep space may be a repurposed rocket part, just like the agency's first-ever astronaut abode in Earth orbit.

With a little tinkering, the upper-stage hydrogen propellant tank of NASA's huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket would make a nice and relatively cheap deep-space habitat, some researchers say.

They call the proposed craft "Skylab II," an homage to the 1970s Skylab space station that was a modified third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket.

"This idea is not challenging technology," said Brand Griffin, an engineer with Gray Research, Inc., who works with the Advanced Concepts Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"It's just trying to say, 'Is this the time to be able to look at existing assets, planned assets and incorporate those into what we have as a destination of getting humans beyond LEO [low-Earth orbit]?'" Griffin said Wednesday (March 27) during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group.

Astronauts would reach the Skylab II deep-space habitat aboard NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. CREDIT: NASA /MSFC artist concept, Brand Griffin, Advanced Concepts Office

A roomy home in deep space
NASA is developing the Space Launch System (SLS) to launch astronauts toward distant destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

The rocket's first test flight is slated for 2017, and NASA wants it to start lofting crews by 2021.

The SLS will stand 384 feet tall (117 meters) in its biggest ("evolved") incarnation, which will be capable of blasting 130 metric tons of payload to orbit. Its upper-stage hydrogen tank is big, too, measuring 36.1 feet tall by 27.6 feet wide (11.15 m by 8.5 m).

The tank's dimensions yield an internal volume of 17,481 cubic feet (495 cubic m) — roughly equivalent to a two-story house.

That's much roomier than a potential deep-space habitat derived from modules of the International Space Station (ISS), which are just 14.8 feet (4.5 m) wide, Griffin said.

The tank-based Skylab II could accommodate a crew of four comfortably and carry enough gear and food to last for several years at a time without requiring a resupply, he added.

Skylab astronauts took this photograph as they approached the orbiting laboratory on the the third and final mission in November 1973. 

Credit: NASA

Further, it would launch aboard the SLS in a single piece, whereas ISS-derived habitats would need to link up multiple components in space.

Because of this, Skylab II would require relatively few launches to establish and maintain, Griffin said. That and the use of existing SLS-manufacturing infrastructure would translate into big cost savings — a key selling point in today's tough fiscal climate.

"We will have the facilities in place, the tooling, the personnel, all the supply chain and everything else," Griffin said.

He compared the overall concept with the original Skylab space station, which was built in a time of declining NASA budgets after the boom years of the Apollo program.

Skylab "was a project embedded under the Apollo program," Griffin said. "In many ways, this could follow that same pattern. It could be a project embedded under SLS and be able to, ideally, not incur some of the costs of program startup."

The Skylab II deep-space habitat would be made from the Space Launch System's upper-stage hydrogen tank. 

CREDIT: NASA/MSFC artist concept, Brand Griffin, Advanced Concepts Office