NASA is poised to make another attempt to certify its moon megarocket for space flight.
The agency plans to test its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket nuclear stage at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi Thursday (March 18) over a two-hour period opening at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT or 14:00 local time in Stennis).
Live coverage of the test should begin on NASA television about half an hour before the test with hot fire, although the agency says it will “refine the timeline as operations progress.” The latest timing information is available at NASA’s Twitter feed on test day. You can watch the webcast live in the window above, courtesy of NASA, or directly via NASA TV.
Video: How NASA’s SLS megarocket engine test works
“Engineers will power all base systems, load more than 700,000 liters of cryogenic – or super cold – propellant gas into the tanks, and simultaneously fire the rocket’s four RS-25 engines to simulate the operation of the stage during launch, taking them 1.6 million pounds of thrust, ”said NASA in describing the test procedure.
This is NASA’s second attempt to conduct a hot fire test of SLS, after the first test unexpectedly closed in early January. The agency is about to prepare this SLS rocket to fly the Artemis 1 round-the-moon unmanned mission, but the “Green Run” series of tests has encountered several delays and technical difficulties in recent months.
Artemis 1 would have to fly to the moon so far in late 2021 to get the agency ready for manned missions. But determining the flight date depends on whether the SLS passes these tests and gets shipped to the Florida launch site on time. Joe Biden’s fledgling administration has not yet set a timeline for putting humans on the moon, but before that, NASA planned to make an Artemis 3 landing in 2024.
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