NASA on Thursday tested the core stage of its massive Space Launch System rocket and rattled the testing facilities in southern Mississippi for a duration well beyond what engineers needed for a clean demonstration. The team carried out its second attempt for the hot-fire run after interrupting an initial shooting in January. Pending review of the test data, engineers aim to ship the rocket stage to Florida prior to the first test flight to the moon under NASA’s Artemis program.
Assembled in a colossal test facility at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, the four RS-25 engines of the 91-foot rocket stage were ignited together for more than eight minutes to test the conditions of a real launch. NASA and its prime contractor, Boeing, had to get at least four minutes of continuous testing time to call it a success. By eight minutes, “they should have gotten what they needed,” said NASA spokeswoman Leigh D’Angelo.
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“They clearly got the full duration they were looking for, which is really great news,” Bill Wrobel, NASA’s Green Run campaign manager, said right after the engines shut down. “Clearly there is a lot of data to be analyzed.”
Turning the engine was a crucial final step in the so-called Green Run test campaign of the SLS program. If the data is correct, it will go by boat to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final assembly. The rocket’s first launch, Artemis I, will send an unmanned Orion astronaut capsule on a journey around the moon early next year.
SLS is NASA’s main rocket for its Artemis program, an ambitious campaign to return humans to the moon and later to Mars. Billed as the strongest rocket since the Apollo program’s Saturn V, its decade-long development has been marred by billions of cost overruns and delays. By the time it flies for the first time, the cost could be nearly $ 20 billion, according to NASA’s Inspector General.
Boeing, the prime contractor building the core phase, said the test “has demonstrated successful core phase operation and will be used to help certify the pre-flight phase.”
“Deep space exploration has taken an important step forward today,” the statement added.