“The date is set,” NASA tweeted yesterday, thanking its partners Boeing Space and Aerojet Rocketdyne for Saturday’s “hot fire” test of the SLS’s core stage.
“One of NASA’s main goals for 2021 is to launch Artemis I, an uncrewed moon mission meant to show the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket can safely send humans to our lunar neighbor,” reports CNET. “But first, NASA plans to make some noise with a fiery SLS test on Saturday.”
Live coverage of the event begins at 1:20 p.m. PT on NASA TV, reports Digital Trends, noting that NASA is targeting a two-hour window for the actual SLS rocket test starting 40 minutes later at 2 p.m. PT.
schwit1 shares this report from Space.com:
It’s a critical test for NASA and the final step in the agency’s “Green Run” series of tests to ensure the SLS rocket is ready for its first launch… In the upcoming hot-fire engine test, engineers will load the Boeing-built SLS core booster with over 700,000 gallons of cryogenic (that’s really cold) propellant into the rocket’s fuel tanks and light all four of its RS-25 engines at once. The engines will fire for 485 seconds (a little over 8 minutes) and generate a whopping 1.6 million pounds of thrust throughout the test…
Following the success of this hot fire test and subsequent uncrewed missions to the moon, “the next key step in returning astronauts to the moon and eventually going on to Mars,” Jeff Zotti, the RS-25 program director at Aerojet Rocketdyne said during the news conference. NASA’s SLS program manager John Honeycutt agreed.
“This powerful rocket is going to put us in a position to be ready to support the agency in the country’s deep space mission to the moon and beyond,” he said.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot