NASA’s Pegasus Barge Set For Its First Delivery To Support Artemis II Test Flight Around The Moon

NASA’s Pegasus Barge is ready to transport the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s core stage from New Orleans to Florida.

Team members have started putting pedestals aboard the barge to secure the enormous core stage for the Artemis II test trip around the moon.

The journey will cover 900 miles from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The installation of the pedestals began on July 10, 2024.

The Pegasus barge, which transported space shuttle external tanks previously, has been redesigned and renovated to carry the larger and heavier SLS core stage.

The SLS core stage is the largest rocket stage ever manufactured by NASA, measuring 212 feet long and 27.6 feet in diameter, and the longest item ever shipped by a NASA barge.

Pegasus, measuring 310 feet long and 50 feet wide, now has three 200-kilowatt generators providing power.

Tugboats and towing vessels will transport the barge from Michoud to Kennedy, where the core stage will be integrated with other rocket elements and prepared for launch.

NASA Michoud maintains the Pegasus.

NASA’s Arterim program aims to land the first woman, person of colour, and international partner astronaut to the moon.

The SLS is essential to NASA’s deep space exploration programs, alongside the Orion spacecraft, rovers, supporting ground systems, the Gateway lunar orbit station, upgraded spacesuits, and commercial human landing technologies.

The SLS is the only rocket capable of sending astronauts, Orion and supplies to the moon in a single launch.

Barge Pegasus Specifications:

Length: 310 feet (94.4 metres).
Width: 50 feet (15.24 metres)
Usable Cargo Deck Length: 240 feet (73.15 meters)
Usable Cargo Deck Width: 36 feet (10.97 metres).
Usable Cargo Deck Height: 41 feet (12.49 metres)
On-board Power: Three 200-kilowatt generators.
Engines: None; tugboats or towing vessels are required for transportation.

The SLS’s core stage, including cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks, powers four RS-25 rocket engines and contains the vehicle’s avionics and flight computer.

NASA has been using barges for decades to deliver massive spacecraft structures.

Pegasus was built in 1999 to transport space shuttle external tanks, replacing the earlier Poseidon and Orion barges used for Saturn rocket stages and Apollo program hardware.

The barge’s final space shuttle journey was in 2011.

Pegasus was modified to handle the SLS in 2014. A 115-foot portion was replaced with a 165-foot section to accommodate increasing cargo weight, increasing the total length from 260 to 310 feet.

The Army Corps of Engineers Marine Design Center in Philadelphia, with engineering by Bristol Harbor Group, supervised these renovations, which were completed in 2015.

Pegasus’ first post-refurbishment journeys began in 2017 when it transported core stage structural test pieces from Michoud to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama for structural load tests.

The SLS’s first mission will be in a Block 1 configuration with a 70-metric-ton lift capacity, transporting an unmanned Orion spacecraft beyond the Moon.

The next SLS development, Block 1B, will use a more powerful upper stage with a lift capacity of 105 metric tons while continuing to use the core stage transported by Pegasus.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS program, while the Marshall Center Operations Transportation and Logistics Engineering Office oversees Pegasus and the agency’s barge transportation program.

Reference: NASA

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