NASA plans to light the most powerful rocket it has ever built on January 17 according to a statement from the agency.
This will be the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS), the long-awaited (and delayed) rocket ship that NASA plans to use for non-commercial human spaceflight. It is at the heart of NASA’s Artemis program, a mission to land, in the language NASA regularly uses “the first woman and the next man” on the moon.
During this initial ignition, only the liquid fuel engines in the core of the rocket will be tested, without the solid fuel amplifiers that will one day help carry SLS into orbit.
When the SLS core tests, it becomes the most powerful rocket ever lit on earth.
The SLS, which is 98 meters high, is a head shorter than the 110-meter Saturn V rockets that astronauts brought to the moon in the 1960s and ’70s. But this rocket is significantly more powerful and delivers 15% more thrust during takeoff and takeoff.
Raw power does not translate neatly into how much mass the rocket can carry in space.
Once completed, the SLS will be able to transport more than 27 tons (24,000 kilograms) to the moon – far more than the 24 tons (22,000 kg) that the Space Shuttle pulled into a low-Earth orbit, although technically less than what Saturn V carried to the moon. (According to the Live Science sister site Space.com, less of the SLS carrying capacity will be wasted at different rocket stages and fuel, which will make the SLS a better truck.)
The test will call the eight-part test program NASA called the SLS ‘green run’.
The seventh part, which was successfully completed on 20 December 2020, showed that the rocket could be loaded with 700,000 liters (265,000 liters) of supercooled liquid fuel and that the fuel could then be removed without falling.
The hot fire is taking place in NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
“During our wet dress rehearsal Green Run test, the core stage, stage controller and Green Run software performed flawlessly, and there were no leaks when the tanks were fully loaded and refilled for about two hours,” said Julie Bassler, SLS. Stages driver at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in the statement. “Data from all the tests to date have given us the confidence to continue with the hot fire.”
The test is likely to be broadcast on NASA’s YouTube channel.
Originally published on Live Science.