Federal agencies are among the nation’s largest facility owners and builders. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the business of going where no one has gone before, faces challenges and must innovate every day—to explore the solar system and beyond and to build the infrastructure on earth to support its missions. Those missions range from providing launch support for commercial space ventures to landing on Mars, where the plucky rover Perseverance continues to explore.

But the series of missions currently capturing the imagination of the American public is Artemis—a program to explore more of the moon than ever before. In Greek mythology, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo—the namesake for the mission that last put Americans on the moon 50 years ago. Notably, NASA’s Artemis program will land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon.

NASA称与“商业和国际合作伙伴”合作的Artemis目标，其中两个重要的参与者是领先的设计公司Jacobs和主要的设计构建者Bechtel。Jacobs太空运营小组副总裁兼总经理Lorna Kenna将Artemis描述为一项计划，使工作人员感到“我是这件事的一部分，这非常重要。”她说，Jacobs是一家在其10个中心中的8个支持NASA的解决方案提供商，“当我们谈论Artemis时，这项工作涉及探索，科学，航空，航空学 - 整个生命周期。”她补充说，在佛罗里达州梅里特岛的肯尼迪航天中心（KSC），2200名员工组成的雅各布斯团队支持NASA的“包括集成测试，结帐和处理Artemis任务的勘探地面系统”。

第一批航班（下）将测试火箭系统和新的Orion航天器。NASA正在与工业及其国际空间站合作伙伴合作，建造绕着月球的月亮哨所的Gateway。
Graphic Courtesy of NASA
*Click on the graphic for a larger version

In October, the Jacobs team stacked the Orion spacecraft and launch abort system atop the Space Launch System (SLS), NASA’s new rocket, in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the space center, marking completion of the assembly of Artemis I.

“The excitement and dedication associated with knowing that you are processing the first of a decades-long program and realizing that it is the world's most powerful rocket with 8.8 million pounds of thrust—323 ft tall as it stands structurally stacked—it’s hard to share the enormity of this,” Kenna explains.

*Click on the photos for a larger version

NASApoints to Artemis activities across the breadth of the agency without tallying a total cost, but an April status update from its Office of Inspector General projected the total through FY 2025 at $86 billion. “NASA’s development of a deep-space human exploration capability to reach the Moon as a precursor to Mars is the agency’s most ambitious and costliest ongoing activity,” it says.

The solid rocket boosters (top right) that will help launch Artemis 1 into space are assembled by NASA and Jacobs personnel at the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. Ground operations workers (left, center) fit Space Launch Systems sections together.
照片：NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA’s Lunar Exploration Program Overview explains that the SLS is the first rocket with the power and capability to carry astronauts to deep space aboard a new spacecraft called Orion. The first Artemis flight will test the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as an integrated system, and it will orbit the moon and return (see graphic left).

The second Artemis flight will send humans to orbit the moon for the first time this century. That flight will be followed by three support missions that deliver parts of Gateway—a lunar orbital outpost NASA is developing with U.S. industry and its International Space Station partners. Gateway sections will include a solar electric propulsion system and a pressurized module.

The lightning protection towers (left) built at Pad 39B also added weather stations and cameras.
Photo: NASA/Jamie Peer

Bechtel has completed design and mobilized the construction site for NASA’s Mobile Launcher 2 for the later Artemis flights—the launch platform that will allow the agency to send astronauts and heavy cargo to the lunar surface. Michael Costas, general manager of the defense and space business line of Bechtel’s nuclear, security and defense global business unit, said his group and its subs are “right on plan to start construction in January 2022.”
NASA报道，佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角（Cape Canaveral）的SLS和猎户座计划包括3,800名供应商和60,000名工人。

To understand the work that went into transforming Kennedy Space Center’s launch complex 39B to accommodate SLS rockets that take off from mobile launchers, one has to go back to its predecessor program, Constellation. In 2006, Jose Perez-Morales, the NASA senior project manager in ground systems development and operations responsible for design, construction and fabrication at 39B, was given the enormous task of removing everything that remained of the Space Shuttle and Apollo programs.

Larger-than-ever liquid-hydrogen sphere (center) provides 1.25 million gallons of LH2 for quicker turnarounds.
Photo:NASA/Cory Huston

一个全新的地面系统

佩雷斯·莫拉莱斯（Perez-Morales）说：“我们取出了固定的服务结构和航天飞机的旋转服务结构。”“那里的每块电子产品都可以追溯到阿波罗时代，其中包括约130万英尺的2英寸厚的厚和带有大铜芯的3英寸厚的电缆，它们都被移走了。”

All the copper wire was recycled and replaced by fiber optics, and the pad received new command and control systems. After the launch of the Ares 1-X in 2009 and the subsequent cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, a lightning control system that consisted of three towers, each 600 ft high with a system of catenary wires designed to protect SLS rockets like Artemis 1 from lighting strikes, was installed. In the space shuttle era, lightning strikes at Cape Canaveral could short out and otherwise damage equipment on the fixed structure and the shuttles. Work on the lightning control system was completed in 2011 by contractor Ivey’s Construction of Merritt Island, Fla.

佩雷斯·莫拉莱斯（Perez-Morales）说，除了保护SLS火箭外，每个塔楼还具有四个级别的天气监测站。这三个塔楼中的12个气象站和一个相机系统提供了SLS火箭的360°可见性，并将帮助发射导演对条件做出有关条件的决定，其触手可及的最新数据。

Another essential addition was a 1.25-million-gallon liquid hydrogen tank at Pad 39B that will support all of the Artemis missions. It was necessary because of the quicker turnaround time needed for mobile launcher missions, and just in case private companies such as SpaceX need to launch from the pad more quickly than the further-spread-out NASA missions.

The final core stage of the Artemis 1 SLS rocket arrived at Kennedy Space Center in April and was transported to the Vehicle Assembly Building.
照片：NASA/Kim Shiflett

“The required usable capacity for liquid hydrogen is substantially larger than the existing spheres,” says Lori Jones, project manager for NASA in the construction of facilities division. The previous hydrogen tanks used perlite to insulate the space between the inner sphere and the outer sphere. Jones says the new liquid hydrogen tank uses glass microspheres, a more efficient insulation system that came out of the spaceport’s Cryogenics Testing Laboratory. A vaporizer, flare stack, fill manifold, piping and valves into the existing liquid hydrogen system were required as well.

Perez-Morales said a new flame deflector and emergency egress system have been built to service Artemis at pad 39B. The system allows crew members to evacuate the SLS rocket via baskets that operate like gondolas.

当Artemis的任务成形时，发射台的工作已经在进行。A presidential space policy directive in 2017 called on NASA to lead humanity’s return to the moon and beyond by 2028. A second directive in 2019 accelerated the timeline to 2024 and added the goal of landing “the first woman and the next man on the moon.” The Biden administration's then Acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk added the charge to land a person of color on the moon to his fiscal 2022 funding request to Congress in April.

NASA的移动发射器1坐在crawlertransporter 2上，因为它开始跋涉到达39B。
Photo: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Cognitive Shift

In a recent policy statement on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, sworn in May 3, added context to the thinking about diversity on the mission. “Our astronauts have taught us about the Overview Effect—a cognitive shift in awareness achieved through a transcendent perspective in space—which helps us understand that all human beings are connected by the commonality of our existence and our interdependencies on a small and fragile planet.” The policy’s definitive commitment to diversity at the agency is echoed by KSC Director Janet Petro (see这里）。

Both Jacobs and Bechtel leaders note that commitment and say it resonates. Costas says Bechtel drives accountability around being a diverse organization. “It does help us make high-quality decisions,” he adds. Kenna says, “Both NASA and Jacobs have embraced diversity and inclusion …. It’s an interesting fit.” Change started at the top at Jacobs and flowed down, she adds, and the “whole business followed along with that at Kennedy.”

Putting it all together in the VAB has consumed Kenna and her team for the last two years. She says they draw on their heritage of engineering to serve as a solutions provider and systems integrator. Artemis components are produced by a conglomerate of OEMs that are integrated by Jacobs. “You can do all the planning … but because this is the first ever of the world’s largest and most powerful rockets, when it finally comes together you always learn something,” she says.

SLS火箭的最后阶段是在4月进行测试后交付的，现在在大流行和相关供应链斗争中坚持不懈的团队正处于Artemis 1计划2月份发布之前的最后一段。

The daunting requirements of the mission demand rigorous testing. Future Artemis astronauts will spend three days traveling 240,000 miles to the moon. For lunar injection return—coming back from the moon—the Orion spacecraft will have to resist more than 5,000° F as it reenters Earth’s atmosphere. Getting the complexity of systems right on the ground is paramount, Kenna says.

Jacobs’ team includes the whole gamut of engineering. Kenna says, “We also have a large contingent of software developers. One thing in addition to ground systems that we support here at KSC is development of the launch control system software” (see这里）。

Next Generation

移动发射器1及其爬行者运输将使Artemis 1 SLS火箭在2月发射39B上。Hensel Phelps十年前为星座计划建造了NASA。Bechtel正在设计和构建替代品ML2，它将具有外围设备，脐带连接以及后来的Artemis发射所需的新的集成轨道运输车。

“After going through over 10 years of building ML1, and all of the lessons learned that came from that, we spent quite a bit of time with NASA optimizing the design on ML2,” says Bechtel’s Costas.

Bechtel报告说，ML2的成本加上奖项合同价值约4.02亿美元。ML2的设计属性涉及处理SLS火箭的重量以及在发射台和飞行操作中适应人为因素的重量，特别是如何安全地保护任务的健康和完整性以及将飞往月球的宇航员。

The data and lessons learned from ML1 are helping optimize safety and constructability on ML2 as well. Modularization techniques and advanced work packaging adopted from the oil and gas sector are cutting design and construction time, Costas adds. Bechtel is mobilizing construction for ML2 in a parking lot adjacent to the VAB, just north of SpaceX's operations at Kennedy Space Center. The lot includes a laydown yard and a headquarters for preconstruction planning about heavy equipment and craft access to the site, he says.

下一步是建造一个模块组件院子，因为大多数系统和结构都在工厂商店的各个部分交付，并使用专业承包商和供应商在KSC的项目中动员了当地的供应链。18luck官网例如，Bechtel正在与佛罗里达州Rockledge的Steel Brouginater JP Donovan合作，以制造和交付将集成到发射平台底部的大型钢桁架。

在与SpaceX这样的其他网站用户进行18luck官网协调的同时，同时从事SLS火箭，最终PAD改进和ML2等ARTEMIS项目是NASA的新现实。该机构现在是与私人探险家和许多行业合作伙伴一起工作的多用户太空港运营商。同时，KSC的Petro在NASA网站的故事中说，该中心的未来涉及“追求……对宇宙的更深入探索”。月球轨道的门户哨所将在月球表面进行广泛的科学研究，并为火星的人类任务做准备。

科斯塔斯说：“我们已经考虑了在月球上掌握一个社区的计划所需的。”“我们最近与学术界竞标了一些有关我们如何帮助NASA计划完成这些任务的工作：您如何发展在另一个星球上进行建筑工作的能力？”