Fifty years have elapsed since the historic NASA Apollo 11 mission planted Man on the moon. The agency is now readying for its next challenge — returning humans to our celestial satellite in the next three years. And to achieve this dream NASA is preparing its incredible new Space Launch System megarocket, dramatic new footage has revealed.
NASA has described the acceleration of its SLS megarocket as “absolutely essential” to getting humans to the moon by 2024 at the latest.
Incredible footage released by NASA show water poured across the Mississippi landscape as the space agency ground-tested its cutting-edge engine.
NASA fired up its RS-25 engine at 2.25pm CDT (7.35pm GMT) yesterday at its John C Stennis Space Centre.
Stennis is a busy location for NASA rocket engine testing. Some of its past prominent work includes testing all the Saturn V engines and stages used in the iconic Apollo program between the 1960s and 1970s.
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The test is part of a larger effort to get the massive SLS megarocket ready to bring astronauts to the moon in the 2020s for the Lunar Gateway space station.
This could culminate in a landing on the moon in 2024 if the wishes of President Trump’s administration are fulfilled in time.
NASA head Jim Bridenstine has admitted the agency will need to accelerate their SLS work schedule to meet the new moon-landing new deadline.
However, NASA’s recent budget request for 2020 pushed back updates to the SLS, which is still under construction.
Late last month, NASA and SLS prime contractor Boeing revealed they have almost completed the outfitting of the core stage engine section for the first flight of SLS, which is scheduled to take place in 2020.
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This flight, dubbed Exploration Mission-1, will be an un-crewed test firing an Orion spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth.
The first crew is scheduled to fly on Orion in 2022.
RS-25 is best known for powering the space shuttle, which flew 135 missions between 1981 and 2011 before the fleet was retired.
Putting four of the compact-car-size engines together on the core stage of SLS provides 2 million lbs. of thrust.
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Booster stages attached to the core provide the rest of the required 8.8 million lbs. of maximum thrust to fire the SLS out of Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA no longer uses the space shuttle to send American astronauts to orbit.
Currently all NASA astronauts are reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets to reach the International Space Station (ISS) — until commercial crew vehicles are ready for test flights this year and next.
And NASA plans to continue putting some astronauts on Soyuz even after regular commercial crew missions in SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner vehicles begin.
