NASA said Friday night that NASA will make another attempt next month to test the launch of its massive Space Launch System rocket after its first attempt was halted.
The rocket’s 212-foot base stage will attempt to launch its four engines for eight minutes at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. This attempt is the last «Green Run» test before the giant rocket is shipped to Florida for its first launch towards the moon.
All four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 rocket engines caught together for the first time earlier this month. But what was supposed to be an eight-minute test lasted just over a minute — much shorter uptime than the engineers needed to advance to Florida. The core of the SLS has been in development for a decade, and has always been late and over budget.
«Conducting a second fire test will allow the team to repeat operations from the first hot test fire and obtain data on how the primary stage and engines perform over a longer period of time that simulate more activities during missile launch and ascent,» NASA said. In a blog post late Friday night.
NASA is targeting November to launch an SLS for the first time, but the agency’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, the nation’s largest oversight agency, say this is unlikely. Instead, they indicated that the launch will likely begin in 2022. NASA remains publicly optimistic.
«It is still possible to launch Artemis I this year with this test in February,» said NASA spokeswoman Katherine Hambleton. the edge.
