NASA SLS rocket engines test on March 18, 2021 in Mississippi.

-

Sipa / Nasa

The Moon objective is getting closer.

NASA on Thursday successfully carried out a static test of the engines of its new giant rocket SLS, which will one day bring astronauts to the surface of our satellite in 2024. It is a relief for the US space agency after a precedent trial cut short in January.

Applause is heard from the @NASAStennis teams as the Green Run hot fire test concludes.

After acquiring eight minutes of data, the teams are now beginning their shutdown procedures.

pic.twitter.com/6WPzZm76k6

- NASA (@NASA) March 18, 2021

The rocket's four main stage RS-25 engines, each the size of a car, were ignited for just over eight minutes, which was the goal, to simulate a launch phase.

They threw a huge cloud of smoke, in a deafening noise, on the test facility in Stennis, Mississippi.

Years behind

For this test called "hot fire", the tanks were filled with some 2.6 million liters of fuel.

“Test passed,” Nasa tweeted on the rocket's official account, shortly after applause rang out in the control room.

At the end of January, in a similar test, the engines shut down much earlier than expected, after just over a minute of ignition.

This time "nothing forced a premature stop, which is very good," commented Thursday Bill Wrobel, in charge of these tests for NASA, during the live broadcast of the American space agency on the internet.

The data will now need to be analyzed in detail.

The SLS (Space Launch System) heavy rocket is already years behind schedule.

It is a powerful launcher intended to carry the Orion spacecraft, as part of the American program Artemis back to the Moon.

This test was the last in a series of eight intended to verify that the main stage of the rocket is ready to launch the Artemis missions.

This stage is almost 65 meters high, is made up of engines, tanks, as well as computers which constitute the "brain" of the rocket.

2024 target

It will now be transported to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A first flight, Artemis 1, scheduled for later this year according to the initial schedule, will be with the Orion capsule at its top, without an astronaut on board.

Artemis 2, in 2023, will send astronauts around the moon, but they will not land.

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

Space company SpaceX is also developing a heavy launcher, Starship, to reach the Moon and even Mars.

The last tests of this rocket ended in impressive explosions.

A new test flight of a Starship prototype could take place in the coming days.

Science

NASA details Artemis, its return to the moon program

  • Space

  • Nasa

  • Moon

  • Science