The engine powering NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) and carry American astronauts to nearby asteroids (and ultimately to Mars) was successfully test fired for a period of 500 seconds on Thursday, the space agency said in a statement.
The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 rocket engine, a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine which had previously been used to power the now-retired space shuttles from the 1980s through 2011, was being used for the first time in nearly five years, according to Engadget and Ars Technica.
The test-firing took place at the John C. Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi and marks the first test of an RS-25 flight engine for the new SLS, which the agency plans to transport crew on all future deep space missions. Four RS-25s producing a combined two million pounds of thrust will be used to power the SLS core stage on those voyages, NASA noted.
“Not only does this test mark an important step towards proving our existing design for SLS’s first flight,” said Steve Wofford, engine manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, “but it’s also a great feeling that this engine that has carried so many astronauts into space before is being prepared to take astronauts to space once again.”
Additional tests planned before initial, unmanned test flight
The engines that will be used on the first SLS missions are leftovers from the shuttle program, and were used on more than 130 missions between 1981 and 2011, the agency said. Thursday’s tests were designed by NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne to demonstrate that a new controller for the engines would work as planned, and to verify the necessary operating conditions.
According to Engadget, the two firms conducted several similar tests on this same engine last year. Following this week’s successful test-fire, they will not begin work on new flight engine controllers, and plan to continue testing the engine to prepare for the SLS’s first launch, which NASA previously reported is scheduled to take place no later than November 2018.
Furthermore, NASA is working on a test stand that will be similar to the one used on the core stage’s first flight, Exploration Mission-1 (which will be an unmanned launch involving the rocket and the Orion spacecraft). The upcoming tests will involve the installation of the flight core stage onto the new stand and firing four RS-25 engines simultaneously, the agency said.
Ars Technica noted that, following the end of the shuttle program, six RS-25s were salvaged to be used for SLS launches. The agency also awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $1.16 billion contract to resume production of the engines, which were originally designed to be reused but will now only be used once, as only the SLS capsule will return to Earth following completion of a mission.
—–
Image credit: NASA
Comments