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1 of 2 | NASA completes a full-duration RS-25 motor basking occurrence Wednesday, connected nan Fred Haise Test Stand astatine nan abstraction agency's Stennis Space Center successful Mississippi. It was nan ninth of 12 tests for NASA's updated engines that will motorboat Artemis missions to nan moon. Photo courtesy of Danny Nowlin/NASA
March 6 (UPI) -- NASA completed a full-duration RS-25 motor basking occurrence Wednesday, arsenic nan abstraction agency continues testing nan updated engines that will motorboat Artemis missions to nan satellite and beyond.
The full-duration test was nan ninth of 12 scheduled tests, and took spot connected nan Fred Haise Test Stand astatine NASA's Stennis Space Center adjacent Bay St. Louis successful Mississippi.
The certification engine, which will thief powerfulness nan Space Launch System, produced a ample plume of fume Wednesday arsenic operators fired it for 10 afloat minutes, overmuch longer than will beryllium needed to motorboat nan SLS rocket and nonstop astronauts aboard nan Orion into orbit. The motor was besides fired astatine powerfulness levels betwixt 80% and 113% to trial its limits.
It will return 4 RS-25 engines and a mates of coagulated rocket boosters, producing much than 8.8 cardinal pounds of thrust astatine liftoff, to motorboat nan SLS rocket for nan Artemis missions.
The RS-25 motor dates backmost to nan 1960s, pinch a erstwhile loop of Rocketdyne from nan 1970s. NASA's first abstraction shuttle formation utilized RS-25 engines to motorboat successful April 1981.
NASA began captious testing of its updated SLS engines past October. The caller engines are expected to powerfulness NASA missions starting pinch Artemis V.
"NASA and our manufacture partners proceed to make dependable advancement toward restarting accumulation of nan RS-25 engines for nan first clip since nan abstraction shuttle era arsenic we hole for our much eager missions to heavy abstraction nether Artemis pinch nan SLS rocket," Johnny Heflin, liquid engines head for SLS astatine NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center successful Alabama, said earlier past year's first test.
The "test bid builds disconnected erstwhile basking occurrence testing already conducted astatine NASA Stennis to thief certify a caller creation that will make this storied spaceflight motor moreover much powerful."
