NASA on Thursday completed an engine test on its rocket that will go to the Moon, after the first attempt in January ended prematurely.
This time, the rocket's four main core engines remained on for eight minutes. Applause erupted in the control room at Stennis Space Flight Center in Mississippi when the engines shut down.
NASA officials described the test as a very important milestone for sending astronauts to the moon, but declined to say when it might happen or even whether the first uncrewed test flight would take place by the end of the year as planned.
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John Honeycutt, NASA program manager for the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket, said everything seemed to go well on Thursday's test launch.
During the first test, the engines only stayed on for a minute. Valve issues were an issue that had to be resolved before Thursday's launch.
With this final test – and assuming everything went well – NASA can now send the rocket to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare it for launch.
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Officials, as we told you above, declined to say whether this first SLS launch will take place by the end of the year as planned or will take place in 2022. The SLS rocket will send an empty Orion capsule to the moon which will return to Earth.
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The Trump administration had pushed for a moon landing by 2024, a deadline that is increasingly difficult if not impossible to meet. The current White House has yet to issue a revised timeline.
NASA Deputy Administrator Steve Jurczyk said the space agency is conducting an internal study to determine a timeline for moon landings — “what we can do best” given the budgets. The review will take several months, he noted.
Information source: phys.org
