Engineers have fired a booster rocket that will help send Americans back to the moon in 2024.
At 20:05 BST (15:05 EDT) the booster, which was secured to the ground, let out a huge column of flame for two minutes.
Two of these boosters will form part of NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the largest launch since Saturn V in the 1960s.
Wednesday’s rocket firing took place at a test site in Utah’s Promontory.
The facility is operated by aerospace giant Northrop Gruman.
The giant solid rocket booster (SRB) provides most of the thrust in the first two minutes of an SLS ride to space.
The test booster was built to test the performance and product quality of the rocket motor. It will also help teams evaluate potential new materials, processes and improvements for the booster ahead of the first landing on the moon in 2024.
Measuring 54m (177 ft) long and 4m (12 ft) wide, the SLS booster is the largest and most powerful solid propellant booster ever built.
Space Launch System (SLS)
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Orion is designed to send spacecraft, astronauts and cargo to the moon
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Includes main stage with two attached solid rocket boosters
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Four RS-25 engines sit at the base of the core stage; They are the same engines used on the space shuttle orbiter
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The main phase is 98 m (322 ft) tall in its initial, or block 1, configuration.
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The Block 1 SLS can send more than 27 metric tons (59,500 pounds) into orbit outside the moon.
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The SLS will generate a maximum of ust.8 million pounds (.5 .5..5 meganitons) of thrust, 15% more than the Saturn V rocket used for the Apollo mission.
It burns about six tons of propellant per second, producing more thrust than 14 four-engine jumbo commercial airliners.
The SLS consists of a huge core stage with four engines at its base. The two SRBs are connected on each side of the core and provide 75% thrust during the first two minutes of climbing space.
Both the core and the booster are taken from the technology used in the space shuttle, which retired in 2011.
Able to generate a total thrust of over eight million pounds, SLS will provide the power needed to launch a crew mission to the moon, and in the end – hopefully – Mars.
NASA plans to launch a huge rocket on its first flight next year. This mission, called Artemis 1, will see an unpiloted Orion capsule sent to a loop around the moon.
Teams from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are already assembling solid rocket boosters for the mission.
For Artemis 2, four astronauts will travel around the moon in 2023, followed by the first crew landing since 1972, a year later.
Meanwhile, engineers in Mississippi have resumed “green run” testing of their massive SLS core stage, after operations stopped in response to threats from tropical storms Marco and Laura.
The Green Run consists of eight tests, four of which have been completed since the two major lanes arrived at NASA’s Stanislaus Space Center near St. Louis in January. The fifth, which has just begun, aims to test rocket controls and hydraulics.
Kathy Luders, NASA’s head of human spaceflight, said she hopes the program could stay on track for “hot fire” testing in October.
During a hot fire, all four powerful RS-25 engines on the main stage base are put into operation for about eight minutes – the time it takes for the SLS to move from ground to orbit.
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