NASA Conducts Fourth RS-25 Rocket Engine Test for Artemis Moon Mission

NASA performed its fourth RS-25 single-engine hot fire test of the year on May 20. It is part of a seven-part test series to promote the construction and production of engines for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on potential Moon missions.

Experts fired the engine at 3:15 pm EDT and lasted for more than eight minutes on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center, NASA said on its website. It's the same period that RS-25 engines would fire for the SLS rocket to launch.

(Photo: NASA)
NASA conducts the fourth RS-25 test.

NASA's RS-25 Test Series To Give SLS Contractor Useful Data

SciTechDaily said the test series intends to provide useful data to Aerojet Rocketdyne, the SLS engines' prime contractor, as it prepares to launch new engines after the first four SLS flights. SLS will be powered by four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters at launch.

Operators are now gathering data to demonstrate and validate various engine capabilities while minimizing operating risk, with engine testing for the rocket's first four Artemis program missions to the Moon already completed.

The team ran the engine at 111 percent of its original output for a fixed time during the May 20 test, which is the same power level that RS-25 engines would run at during launch.

SLS is NASA's most powerful rocket to date, and it's the only one capable of transporting Orion, astronauts, and materials to the Moon in a single trip.

John Shannon, vice president and program manager for SLS at Boeing, the rocket's prime contractor, said that the engines needed to run for about 250 seconds to get the data required to continue with shipping the core stage to KSC.

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About Artemis Mission

Science Times previously reported that NASA's Artemis program will see the first woman and person of color land on the Moon. The said program is expected to develop long-term exploration in preparation for missions to Mars.

NASA's backbone for deep space exploration is the SLS and NASA's Orion spacecraft and the commercial human landing vehicle and the Gateway outpost in lunar orbit.

Space.com said Artemis 1 is expected to launch by the end of the year. But it's unknown if it will actually happen. Following the first SLS core hot fire drill, then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was too early to say whether or not the vehicle would be ready by the end of the year.

Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk also said in a Science Times report that launching the Artemis this year will be challenging due to some delays.

He attributed the delays to the core stage's technological problems during the Green Run tests and temperature and the pandemic. Jurczyk also revealed that those issues consumed almost half of the leeway in the launch schedule for this year.

This is the first time flow on a vehicle at KSC, he said. It's the first time they've been through the process of integrating vehicle components and doing pre-launch testing.

Bill Nelson, the Biden administration's nominee for NASA administrator, pointed at the launch being postponed until next year during his confirmation hearing on April 21. In the written version of his opening statement, he said the first of the Artemis missions deploy within the next year," a time that will last until early 2022.