The 10 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket motor segments that will help launch the Artemis III crew on their mission to land on the Moon are complete. Teams finished manufacturing the segments for the mission on May 18, 2022. Each of the twin solid rocket boosters is made up of five motor segments that will be stacked with the rest of the booster parts before flight. The twin boosters supply 7.2 million pounds of thrust – more than 75 percent of total thrust for the first two minutes of flight.
Each SLS solid rocket booster has three major assemblies: forward skirt, motor, and aft skirt. The motor segments will be stored at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory, Utah, facility until they are transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they will be integrated with the booster’s forward and aft assemblies and avionics, then stacked on the mobile launcher in the Vehicle Assembly Building for flight.
NASA and Northrop Grumman teams at Kennedy are assembling and testing booster structures and avionics for the Artemis II and Artemis III missions and preparing for the first SLS launch on the Artemis I mission. Propellant casting for the Artemis IV motor segments is in progress at Northrop’s factory in Utah. Artemis IV will be the first flight of SLS Block 1B. Testing for upgraded booster motors on Artemis IX and beyond has already begun, with the latest subscale motor test taking place June 1, 2022.
