NASA Weighs Shelving Its Own Giant Booster, Using Private Rocket to Moon
- Commercial plan would need two launches, integration in space
- Boeing’s SLS has a long history of delays, cost overruns
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Additional delays with a Boeing Co. rocket has NASA considering commercial help to mitigate further schedule slips in launching the agency’s future deep-space exploration craft.
The Space Launch System “is struggling to meet its schedule,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. The rocket won’t be ready for a launch in June 2020, when NASA had planned the Exploration Mission-1 flight of its Orion spacecraft around the moon.