Eight and a half minutes at full power: NASA tests RS-25 engine for Artemis flights
At Stennis Space Center, a development engine for the SLS moon rocket fired for about 500 seconds at up to 111% power. A new heat shield for the nozzle was also tested.
Archive image · Photo: NASA / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
NASA on Wednesday tested an RS-25 engine at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Development engine No. 10001 fired for about 500 seconds, or roughly eight and a half minutes, on the Fred Haise Test Stand, matching the burn time of an SLS moon rocket launch. Operators throttled it up to 111% power, the thrust level that newly built engines need to send SLS and the Orion capsule to orbit.
According to NASA, the test served to acceptance-test components for future Artemis missions. Engineers also evaluated a new thermal protection system designed to shield the engine nozzle from the heat of launch. The engine itself will not fly.
Four RS-25 engines produce up to 2 million pounds of combined thrust (about 8,900 kilonewtons) during each SLS launch. L3Harris Technologies is the prime contractor; teams from NASA and Nova Space Solutions also took part in the test. All flight engines are tested and certified at Stennis before they are used.