Tag: RS-25
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Aerojet Rocketdyne expands operations to deliver four SLS engines a year
NASA is extending its RS-25 engine production contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne through the rest of the decade, a move that guarantees a steady supply of liquid-fueled engines for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s core stage. This consolidates Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RS-25 engine contracts, ensuring they continue to prepare the 16 RS-25 flight engines inherited from…
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Aerojet Rocketdyne building new RS-25 engines for recertification testing
Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) is delivering new RS-25 rocket engine hardware from its U.S. facilities to certify its new production process and is getting ready for the next phase of testing. More than a decade after production was discontinued, the engine maker is setting up assembly lines for major engine components at facilities in California and…
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First SLS core stage installed on test stand in Mississippi
The SLS core stage for the Artemis 1 mission was rotated vertical in January for installation into the B-2 test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi. Credit: NASA/SSC Weeks after leaving its factory in New Orleans, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System flight has been raised into a test…
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First NASA SLS Core Stage rolls out – Ships to Stennis
Working through almost all of the standard fortnight year-end holiday, Boeing’s final assembly team for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage completed work on their first rocket with Core Stage-1 leaving the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) factory early on the morning of January 8. NASA held a ceremonial event in early December to mark…
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Aerojet Rocketdyne overviews RS-25 installation success ahead of MAF rollout milestone
Four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines are fully installed in a NASA Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage for the first time. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) donated to SLS from the forty-year long program that ended in 2011 were hard-mated in Core Stage-1 last week after being physically attached between mid-October and early November.…
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All four RS-25 Shuttle veterans installed into SLS Core Stage
In a major milestone for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), all four RS-25 engines – veterans of the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) – have been installed into the core stage of the rocket that will conduct the maiden flight of NASA’s new monster rocket on the Artemis-1 mission. SLS will use the full inventory of…
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Turning the SLS engine section over for final Core Stage mate
Boeing’s new plans to finish the first assembly of a NASA Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage horizontally are set to culminate in the use of several new and modified tools to help do something to the engine section it wasn’t originally designed for. All the work to complete standalone assembly of the engine section…
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Boeing completes first NASA SLS engine section, getting ready for final Core Stage mate
Officials from NASA along with prime contractor Boeing formally signed off on the first assembly of the most complicated element of the civilian space agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. After a review of data from two months of functional testing at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, the engine section element of…
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Shuttle veteran RS-25 engines ready for SLS Core Stage installation ahead of Artemis-1
The four RS-25 engines for the first launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) have all arrived at the factory where their Core Stage is being completed. The engines were trucked one by one from Aerojet Rocketdyne’s final assembly facility at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New…
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SLS Core Stage MPS: more than just a fuel tank
One of the main elements of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage that makes it more than just a big fuel tank is the Main Propulsion System (MPS). All the equipment for the care and feeding of uprated Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME), adapted for SLS by Aerojet Rocketdyne as the RS-25, is repackaged…