NASA ready for second hot fire test of SLS rocket

Paris, 17 March 2021. – Heating up: The U.S. space agency schedules the second hot fire test of its Space Launch System (SLS), the “largest rocket in the world”, for tomorrow, Thursday, NASA said.

Engineers at the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, will power up all the core stage systems, load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant into the tanks, and fire the rocket’s four RS-25 engines at the same time to simulate the stage’s operation during launch, generating 1.6 million pounds of thrust, NASA said.

The hot fire test is the eighth and final one of the so-called Green Run series. Its aim is to get the SLS core stage ready for the Artemis Moon missions. Artemis I will test the rocket and the Orion spacecraft before it undertakes crewed flights.

Artemis is NASA’s program to land “the first woman and the next man” on the Moon and pave the way for a “sustainable exploration” and future missions to Mars.