The joints connecting each piece of Space Launch System’s five-segment rocket motors are certified for one year once booster stacking begins, a clock that began ticking Jan. 7 with the hoisting of the SLS’s left-hand aft center booster segment on top of the booster’s lowermost piece.
But the 12-month certification limit, a holdover from the space shuttle program, could be extended with an engineering review, according to John Honeycutt, NASA’s Space Launch System program manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
Honeycutt said in January engineers planned to make measurements and collect data as ground teams stacked each segment of the Artemis 1 boosters inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. The data could help NASA and Northrop Grumman extend the certification of the rocket motor joints beyond 12 months.
“That gives us the best opportunity to do some sort of a life extension on the booster stacking in the event that we need that,” Honeycutt said.
[1] https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/09/stacking-complete-for-...