Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter Integrated With SLS

Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs prepare to integrate the launch vehicle stage adapter (LVSA) for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the massive SLS core stage.
Integration was done on the mobile launcher in the agency’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2021.

The LVSA arrived at Kennedy from the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in July 2020 and has remained in the VAB for processing. During integration, known as “stacking,” the LVSA will be bolted to the forward skirt of the core stage, connecting the core stage and the interim cryogenic propulsion stage in preparation for the first flight of the rocket and the Orion spacecraft during Artemis I. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test SLS and the Orion spacecraft as an integrated system prior to crewed flights in which NASA will land the first woman and person of color on the Moon.

KSC-20210622-PH-FMX01_0222 Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux Larger image