Aerospace firms on Thursday promised NASA a successful test of a Boeing-based rocket engine of Artemis envoys aimed at returning US astronauts to the moon by 2024, more than half a century since its departure last month.
NASA mimicked its launch by shooting the engines of the main stage of the Rocket Space Space Launch System (SLS) while crammed into a tower at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
The four RS-25 engines roared alive for a full eight minutes of testing and filled the surrounding area with the sky with clouds of white smoke. Following the shutdown of the engines, NASA personnel were heard applauding the space shuttle video, and many aerospace firms publicly congratulated NASA on its successful testing.
The previous test in January ended after about a minute – much shorter than the four-minute engineers who needed to collect enough data.
The Space Launch System is now expected to fly to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to be integrated into the Lioned Martin Corp. Orion spacecraft.
NASA aims to send an unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon in November and repatriate US astronauts to the moon by 2024, but the SLS system is three years behind and almost $ 3 billion over budget.
President Joe Biden has persuaded former Democratic Senator and astronaut Bill Nelson to run the U.S. Space agency, according to two people who know the decision.
It was Boeing’s most sought-after victory after many setbacks.
Boeing lost the race to make his Starliner crew capsule the first to transport astronauts from US soil to the International Space Station in nearly a decade to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
