It may not be considered history yet but once the Artemis 1 actually gets off of the ground, it will write new history in space flight. This last May, I was contracted to go to NASA's, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. I was there to upgrade the Friction Stir Welder that welds each of the aluminum panels together to form the outer structure of all of NASA's space vehicles.
While I was there they were constructing the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter for Artemis III. I was able to take pictures and video while in the facility, which surprised me.
Below is a mock up of the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter for Artemis series rockets. This one won't be used, it was just a mock up prior to production.
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The Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter is a cone shaped aluminum fabrication consisting of two conical halves welded together. The pictures below show the upper and lower halves of the real McCoy that will be part of the Artemis III manned space flight.
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Each panel starts out as a 2" thick aluminum panel and the inside of the panel is machined out to reduce weight but still maintain it's strength. The machined panels are then formed with a slight radius then each of the panels are friction stir welded together. Below is a picture of the inside of the welded structure.
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The Artemis rockets will be propelled by 4 Pratt & Whitney, Rocketdyne RS-25 engines in addition to two solid fuel rocket boosters combining for 8.8 million pounds of thrust. The life expectancy for the RS-25 engines is 8.5 minutes and they will burn 12,000 pounds of fuel per second.
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Below is a short video I took while NASA's workers were moving the smaller of the two sections.
This is the machine I was sent to work on.
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