NASA Completes Hot-Fire Test of Boeing’s SLS Core Stage

Boeing announced that the core stage it built for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket completed hot-fire testing on Thursday. 

The hot-fire test was conducted at NASA’s Stennis Space Center as part of the SLS rocket’s Green Run test campaign on the B-2 test stand, Boeing said.

John Shannon, Boeing’s SLS vice president and program manager, said the data from the test will inform Boeing’s development of a new production system and the delivery of future stages.

Boeing said its SLS core stage uses hydrogen and oxygen tanks to power four RS-25 engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, achieving 1.6 million lbs of thrust during the test.

The core stage will later be integrated with NASA’s Orion crew spacecraft, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage upper stage and solid rocket boosters, Boeing said.

According to NASA, the SLS core stage includes computers and electronics that control the first eight minutes of the flight.

NASA plans to use the complete vehicle for the first mission of the Artemis program, which will be an uncrewed test flight around the moon in preparation for future manned missions.

The SLS rocket test was the last in the Green Run series aimed at ensuring Orion can land personnel on the moon in 2024, CNN reported.

NASA deemed the Thursday test necessary after the previous one in January ended in a premature shutdown. The previous hot-fire test was supposed to last for about eight minutes but the engines powered down after about a minute.