NASA Preparing to Return to Moon after Getting Success in Giant Rocket Test
NASA carried out a key static test of its troubled Space Launch System rocket on Thursday, which turned out to be a great success for the agency as it prepares to return to the Moon.
The second “hot fire” test saw all four of the rocket’s RS-25 engines fire simultaneously at 4:40 pm Eastern time (2040 GMT) for the full duration of eight minutes, producing a maximum of 1.6 million pounds of thrust (7.1 million Newtons).
NASA is planning to place the first woman on the Moon by 2024 and build a lunar orbital station. The test’s success came as a relief to the agency after an earlier run involving the 212-foot (65-meter) high core stage at the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi was cut short in January.
“We’ve had some challenges,” said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA’s deputy associate administrator of exploration system development.
“I’m just so proud of the team with the way they’ve methodically worked through these challenges.” He added,
This test was required to collect data on how the core stage behaves during critical operations like throttling engines up and down and moving them in a variety of patterns. The rocket’s tanks were filled with 700,000 gallons (2.6 million litres) of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which when burned sent a huge plume of water vapour into the sky.
Now, engineers will analyze the data and decide whether the stage is ready to be rebuilt and transported by barge to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida or not. There, it will be assembled with the other parts of the SLS rocket and the Orion crew capsule, which are being prepared for the Artemis I launch later this year — an uncrewed mission.
After this test was conducted, Bill Wrobel, an official in charge of the test, said during a livestream, “The applause says a lot about how the team feels.” “Looks pretty good right now,” he added. “This is a major milestone towards advancing our goals objectives for Artemis,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk later told reporters, referring to the lunar program.
