NASA kicked off the ultimate certification series for its Artemis moon-rocket engines with a dramatic “hot fire” test this week.
NASA will begin using repurposed RS-25 space shuttle engines to fly astronauts to the moon with its Artemis program. Then the brand new hotfire series, starting Wednesday (Oct. 17), goals to proceed certifying an updated RS-25 line of engines that may start flying on the Artemis 5 mission late within the 2020s. 4 RS-25s power the core stage of every Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, a key piece of Artemis hardware.
The RS-25 developmental design for engine E0525 passed its first hotfire on Wednesday, kicking off an ambitious series of 12 tests planned through 2024. “The test series will collect data on the performance of several latest key engine components, including a nozzle, hydraulic actuators, flex ducts and turbopumps,” NASA officials wrote in an Oct. 3 update.
Each hotfire series puts a distinct RS-25 engine through its paces; one other RS-25 was certified in June following its own set of 12 tests.
Related: Watch NASA test fire latest and improved Artemis moon rocket engine (video)
Live footage from NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi showed smoke and fire successfully flowing out of the RS-25 for 550 seconds (greater than nine minutes), which was the total planned duration of Wednesday’s test. The test included bringing the facility as much as the extent required during a standard SLS launch. The duration was barely longer than a nominal SLS core-stage burn, which lasts 500 seconds.
The tests will aid the certification of SLS missions starting with Artemis 5, which is able to fly no sooner than 2029 but may push into the 2030s depending on the progress of earlier missions. Artemis 2 will bring 4 astronauts across the moon in 2024, while Artemis 3 goals to place astronauts down near the lunar south pole in late 2025 or 2026, provided SpaceX‘s Starship landing system is prepared in time. Artemis 4 will attempt one other landing in 2028.
The lead SLS engine contractor is Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, while Boeing is constructing the SLS.
The engines aren’t the one thing being tested for future missions. For instance, in September, engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama finished a subscale booster motor test. SLS uses twin solid-rocket boosters to supply additional thrust during liftoff. The test is examining an alternate booster design for missions after Artemis 8.