When NASA’s Space Launch System rocket finally lifts off from Kennedy Space Center, the blast is going to be big.
The latest test of one of the engines set to power the first humans into deep space since 1972 got to show just how big in a test Wednesday at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
In its third engine test of the year, NASA boosted up an RS-25 engine to 113 percent capacity for 50 seconds of a 260-second test on the A-1 Test Stand, where all of the RS-25 engines have been letting it rip.
The engines are all converted from the space shuttle program, and the Space Launch System features four of these engines with two solid rocket boosters to create more than 8 million pounds of thrust.
For comparison, the recent successful test launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center generated 5 million pounds of thrust. When SLS launches, it will surpass the 7.6 million pounds of thrust from the Apollo program’s Saturn V rockets.
The SLS is designed to take NASA’s astronauts aboard the Orion capsule into deep space for eventual missions to the moon and Mars.
The next SLS launch, Exploration Mission-1, an unmanned mission slated for late 2019, has already had its four RS-25 engines tested at Stennis and have made their way over to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where they will be connected to a core stage. The core stage with all four engines will return for testing at Stennis for a full engine burn on a new test stand being constructed. Then everything will make its way to Kennedy Space Center for launch from pad 39B.
The RS-25 engines being tested now at Stennis are for Exploration Mission-2, which will be the first manned mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. That mission is slated for 2023.
Sixteen former space shuttle engines are being tested at Stennis for the SLS program while six new RS-25 engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne have been ordered for use in future missions.
NASA’s deep-space exploration long-term notional plan features eight missions to the moon through 2030.Exploration Mission-2 with the Orion capsule will carry humans back into deep space for the first time since Apollo 17’s trip to the moon in 1972.
Stennis Space Center has been testing rockets for NASA launches since 1961 including all the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era and more than 2,300 space shuttle main engine tests for all 135 space shuttle missions.
rtribou@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5134
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