Skip to footer

NASA approves massive Mars rocket: All systems are go for a 2018 launch

NASA's newest rocket will be the largest rocket ever constructed, standing 400 feet tall — 40 feet taller than the massive Saturn V rockets that carried men to the moon. The new launch vehicle is designed to send astronauts to asteroids or even Mars.

  • By Miriam Kramer Space.com

NASA new mega-rocket, a towering booster designed for deep space missions, will be ready for its first test flight no later than November 2018, space agency officials announced Wednesday (Aug. 27).

It's possible that the Space Launch System rocket test flight could launch as early as December 2017, but NASA officials have committed to having the rocket ready for flight be the end of 2018 to be safe. That extra wiggle room should let the space agency cope with scheduling and funding issues as they crop up in the future, NASA officials said in a teleconference with reporters.

The SLS will be the largest rocket ever constructed and it is designed to send humans deeper into space than ever before. The huge launcher — which will stand at 400 feet tall (122 meters) in its final configuration — could deliver NASA astronauts to an asteroid and even Mars sometime in the future. [See images of NASA's SLS rocket design]

"Our nation is embarked on an ambitious space exploration program, and we owe it to the American taxpayers to get it right," NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot, said in a statement. "After rigorous review, we’re committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sending humans to Mars in the 2030s – and we’re going to stand behind that commitment." 

NASA expects that SLS will cost a total of $7 billion from February 2014 through November 2018. For its first test flight, SLS will fly out of low-Earth orbit with an unmanned Orion space capsule.

The SLS team just passed a major design review, which will allow the program to move forward with design plans.

The 2018 date is a reflection of modeling done by a review board, which suggested that the new date is likely more attainable, NASA officials said during a news conference today (Aug. 27). The review board looked at the SLS plan and brought up problems that could arise during the building of the rocket system, possibly causing a change in schedule.

"They're [the review board] telling us that if we don't do anything, we basically have a 70 percent chance of getting to that date," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate, said during the news conference. "Our intent and the team's intent at Marshall [Space Flight Center] is to go look at those problems and see what we can do to mitigate those problems."

"There are probably some other problems that aren't even identified by the Standing Review Board that will come up," Gerstenmaier added. "Our job as a management team is to look at those problems, figure out ways to work those ahead of time, and proactively work those as they come about."

It's possible that the first SLS flight could occur before the 2018 target if the team works to head off any potential issues before they occur, according to Gerstenmaier.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Copyright 2014 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to NASA approves massive Mars rocket: All systems are go for a 2018 launch
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0831/NASA-approves-massive-Mars-rocket-All-systems-are-go-for-a-2018-launch
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe