Tag: SSME
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Artemis II stacking and preparations underway even as SLS faces budget cuts
The SLS program continues with preparations for the first human spaceflight to the Moon’s vicinity since 1972. Currently scheduled for April 2026, the mission’s date could be moved up to as early as February if no major issues arise. Meanwhile, the program’s future faces uncertainties as the proposed NASA budget for Fiscal Year 2026 aims…
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RS-25 engine installation into the Artemis II SLS Core Stage begins
Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies Company, is helping install four of its RS-25 liquid-propellant rocket engines in NASA’s second Space Launch System (SLS) core stage at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans. The beginning of installation of the upgraded former Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) in Core Stage-2 at MAF on Sept.…
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RS-25 engine performance “perfect” on Artemis I debut launch
The four RS-25 engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne successfully propelled the Core Stage, Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System, and Orion/Service Module stack into its initial Earth orbit during the system’s debut launch on Nov. 16, 2022. The engines fired for a full duration of nearly eight and a half minutes, inserting the SLS stack into a 30…
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SLS continuing engine upgrades, tech development to support launcher evolution
The Liquid Engines Office for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Program is planning a busy schedule of test campaigns next year in parallel with efforts to complete preparations for the vehicle’s first launch. Existing Aerojet Rocketdyne hydrogen-oxygen engine designs and hardware will be used for the SLS core and upper stages, but both the space…
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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 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 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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STS-93 at Twenty Years: “A very long eight and a half minutes”
After another launch scrub for weather, Space Shuttle mission STS-93 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida twenty years ago in 1999 to begin an eventful ascent into low Earth orbit. Shuttle Columbia, with NASA’s first female spaceflight commander Eileen Collins leading a crew of five, successfully reached orbit and went on…
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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…