NASA’s final Green Run hot-fire

NASA has targeted Jan. 17 for the eighth and final hot-fire test in its Green Run series that gradually brings the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) to life for the first time. NASA conducted the seventh test of the Green Run test series before Christmas at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. It marked the first time cryogenic liquid propellant was fully loaded into, and drained from, the SLS core stage’s two tanks. Boeing is the core stage lead contractor, and Aerojet Rocketdyne is the RS-25 engines lead contractor. The SLS program is managed out of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., while Boeing’s Huntsville-based Space and Launch division manages the company’s SLS work. The upcoming hot fire test will fire all four of the stage’s RS-25 engines simultaneously for up to eight minutes to simulate the core stage’s performance during launch. After the firing at Stennis, the core stage for SLS will be refurbished and shipped by barge to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be assembled with other parts of the rocket and NASA’s Orion spacecraft in preparation for Artemis I - the first integrated flight of SLS and Orion and the first non-crew mission of the Artemis program. (Source: Yellowhammer 01/06/21)