NASA is building the world’s most powerful rocket stage to bring a new generation of astronauts to the moon. The agency plans to fire the engines on Thursday.
The rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), was eventually built to stand at 5,365 feet (111 m). The system is part of NASA’s Large Artemis program, a લર 30 billion effort to put people on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. NASA has spent about 18 18 billion on rocket development.
The 212-foot-tall core stage – the largest piece of the system and its structural backbone – is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket stage, according to NASA. She is currently in a test stand at the Stanislaus Space Center in Mississippi on Thursday afternoon, ready for what is known as the “Hot Fire” test.
This means that NASA will run the engine on continuous fire for about eight minutes – the length of time required to deliver the upper stage rocket and spaceship into orbit. If the engines pass this test, the main phase will be ready to join the rest of the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A crew from the Stanislaus Space Center will launch the main phase of NASA’s space launch system on January 22, 2020.
NASA
This hot fire is the eighth and final step in NASA’s Green Run program, designed to fully investigate every part of the core phase before the first launch of the SLS – a test flight around the moon called Artemis. Planned, SLS could launch in November.
The ultimate goal is to take the final astronauts to the moon by the end of the mid-2020s.
An artist’s rendering of a space launch system rocket taking off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA / MSFC
“Our core-stage green run is the most comprehensive test we are conducting to ensure that SLS can safely launch the Artemis mission to the moon,” SLS program manager John Honeycutt told a news conference in February. “This is a pay-per-view opportunity to learn as much as we can about the rocket, while we got into this test configuration before we took off.”
Watch NASA’s rocket test-fire live
NASA TV will begin live broadcast of the test via ET on Thursday at 3 p.m. It’s the beginning of a two-hour window that NASA has carved for a hot fire. Watch the livestream here:
To prepare for the test, six barrages will take the site 73 g, 000 gallons of cryogenically chilled propellant to the test site as early as Thursday. Three will carry liquid hydrogen, while the other three will carry liquid oxygen. The main stage has a fuel tank for each. Once NASA gives a “go,” these tubes will load propellant into those tanks, preparing the rocket stage for fire.
Last hot fire attempt cut short
Boeing is NASA’s main contractor for the main phase, and AirRet RocketDin is responsible for its four RS-25 engines, which were also used on NASA’s space shuttle fleet.
NASA had earlier attempted the same hot-fire test in January, but the engines suddenly stopped in just a minute.
S.L.S. The engine ignites the propellant (left) during a hot fire test on January 16, 2021, then abruptly shuts down (right).
NASA TV
It turned out that the flight computer automatically skipped the test midway through because the engine’s motion control system had exceeded the limit set by NASA in front of the hot fire. The limit was deliberately tightened, NASA said, because the agency did not want to push the rocket so hard that it would be damaged during testing.
But over the next two months, NASA adjusted the test parameters to less than Rs. The SLS team has determined that it can extend the limits to the hardware without further additional risks, Honeycutt said. If the system had exceeded the previous limit during the actual launch, NASA said, the rocket would have continued to fly.
The team also repaired a liquid-oxygen oxygen valve that did not open properly, a problem they discovered during the preparation of the next hot fire.
At this point, SLS program managers are hoping the engine will fire for at least four minutes. Although the full test should be eight minutes long, the four will provide NASA with enough data to confirm that the main phase is safe for flight.
If anything goes wrong, NASA will have to redo the hot fire a third time, which could delay the first mission and throw a wrench into the ambitious timeline of the Artemis program. The program aims to land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024.
“We’re still on track to have the opportunity to launch this year, but we also recognize that there may be some issues like weather and covid and first-time operations,” said Tom Whitemeyer, who led the NASA program. “We are developing new research systems like SLS and Orion,” he told a news conference. “So there are plans to launch this year, but we will continue to make progress throughout the year and we will definitely let you know how we are doing.”
