The interstage connector for the first NASA Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle was delivered to NASA in mid-July and is in transit to its launch site. The Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA) was completed by Teledyne Brown Engineering at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Alabama and officially turned over to the agency for use on the Artemis 1 launch, tentatively scheduled for late 2021.
While the first flight LVSA unit was placed on NASA’s Pegasus barge and towed through U.S. waterways to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, work to weld the second LVSA structure is well underway at MSFC. Plans are to have the second unit ready for the Artemis 2 vehicle by mid-2022 and NASA has also placed orders for the long-lead raw materials necessary to build fabrication of a third LVSA.