Page 28: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2021)

INTERVIEW ARLAN COCHRAN, NASA

After completing its journey from NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi aboard the Pegasus barge, teams with Exploration

Ground Systems (EGS) and lead contractor Jacobs transport the massive Space Launch System (SLS) core stage to Kennedy Space

Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida on April 29, 2021.

Once inside the VAB, it will be prepared for integration with the completed stack of solid rocket boosters atop the mobile launcher ahead of the Artemis I launch.

The ? rst in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will test SLS and

Orion as an integrated system prior to crewed ? ights to the Moon.

NASA/Kim Shi? ett

The most recent trek found Pegasus ferrying the massive The SLS core stage is more than 50 feet longer than the space core stage of the agency’s new rocket, the Space Launch shuttle external tank and, including ground support and trans-

System (SLS), from the Michoud Assembly Facility in New portation equipment, and more than 600,000 pounds heavier.

Orleans to other NASA centers for testing and for launches. In 2014, crews at Conrad Shipyard LLC in Morgan City, La.,

SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space were given the task to refurbish the barge. A 115-ft. section missions, including missions to Mars, and at 212-ft.-tall with a of the barge was removed and replaced with a 165-ft. section 27.6-ft.-diameter, the core stage includes the cryogenic liquid specially designed to increase the cargo weight Pegasus can hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks that will feed four RS-25 accommodate, as well as lengthening it from 260 to 310 ft.

rocket engines, and also contains the vehicle’s avionics and The Army Corps of Engineers Marine Design Center in ? ight computer. The SLS core stage will be the longest item Philadelphia, with help Bristol Harbor Group of Bristol, RI, ever shipped by a NASA barge. performed the naval architecture and marine engineering “The core stage has been in design and development for design, as well as management of the Conrad contract. The many years, and the Pegasus barge has been right along with modi? cations were completed in 2015. it,” said Cochran. “The ? rst thing that had to happen was that This lift for NASA went far beyond a barge and its load.

Pegasus had to get longer and stronger. We went out there, and “This article, besides just its size and weight, also has the we were originally 50 feet short of what was needed for the ground support equipment that actually transport it, so you core stage, but we didn’t cut out just 50 feet and add. We cut had to handle that weight also for the barge,” said Cochran. out 115 feet and came back with 165 feet of restructured steel “We had to do a lot of different training exercises that were to be able to handle this large article.” structural test articles … just like the core stage had to be test-

Pegasus was designed and built in 1999 to transport the ed, so did the Pegasus.” external tanks of the space shuttles from the Louisiana shore Given the nature of its mission and value of its cargo, Co- to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the eastern coast of chran and his team are able to tap a wealth of resources that

Florida – a 900-mile journey that includes both inland and far transcend commercial maritime operations. open-ocean waterways. Pegasus replaced Poseidon and Ori- “(In addition to our contractors), we have access to the on, barges that were used to carry Saturn rocket stages and Coast Guard which is there to support us, for security and hardware for the Apollo Program. Pegasus completed its ? - things of that nature. We also have access to the Air Force nal space shuttle-related voyage in 2011. Pegasus had to be (above Kennedy that helps us monitor the conditions to make modi? ed and refurbished to carry SLS for its new mission. sure we’re safe when we do travel), and now the Space Force, 28 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2021

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