Successful test of NASA’s giant SLS rocket engines for the moon

The purpose of the moon is approaching. NASA on Thursday successfully tested the engines of its new giant SLS rocket, which should one day be Bring astronauts to the surface of our satellite in 2024. This is a relief to the US space agency after the previous test was reduced to January.

Applause is heard ASNASAStennis Teams after the Green Run hot fire test. After receiving eight minutes of data, the teams are now beginning procedures for a shutdown. pic.twitter.com/6WPzZm76k6

– NASA (AS NASA) March 18, 2021

The rocket’s four main stage RS-25 engines, each the size of a car, were ignited in just over eight minutes, aiming to simulate a launch pad. At a test station in Stennis, Mississippi, they threw a large cloud of smoke, inaudible noise.

Years behind

About 2.6 million liters of fuel were filled into the tanks for this test, known as “hot fire”. Shortly after applause erupted in the control room, NASA tweeted on its official account of the rocket that “the test is over.” At the end of January, in a similar test, after a minute of ignition, the engines shut down more than expected.

This time “nothing forced a premature shutdown, this is very good,” Bill Wroble, who was in charge of the tests for NASA on Thursday, commented during a live broadcast on the U.S. space agency’s website. The data now need to be analyzed in detail.

The SLS (Space Launch System) heavy rocket is already several years behind schedule. The US program Artemis is a powerful missile intended to bring the Orion spacecraft back to the moon. The test was the last in eight series aimed at verifying that the main stage of the rocket was ready to launch the Artemis passengers. At an altitude of about 65 meters, it is made up of machines, tanks and computers, which are the “brain” of the rocket.

2024 target

It will now be flown to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Artemis 1, the first aircraft scheduled for later this year, will be at its peak with the Orion capsule, without an astronaut. Artemis 2 will send astronauts around the moon in 2023, but they will not land.

Finally Artemis 3 will send two astronauts to lunar soil in 2024, including the first woman in theory. In its structure for Artemis 1, the American astronauts to the moon in the last century are larger than the SLS rocket Liberty statue and more powerful than the famous Saturn V.

Space company SpaceX is developing a heavy missile called the Starship to reach the moon and even Mars. The last tests of this rocket are over In impressive explosions. The new test flight of the starship prototype may take place in the coming days.