It powered space shuttles 135 times during three decades of service. That means the two most important factors for an SLS engine are performance and reliability. And just like the Saturn V, it will carry people. It can carry staggeringly large payloads into orbit-up to 130 tons, eventually-making it the most powerful launch vehicle since the Saturn V. If you're an SLS critic, this is the where you say, "SLS has no missions." Officially speaking, the rocket's manifest contains just two Orion spacecraft flights to lunar orbit.īut while some people mock SLS as a rocket to nowhere, another way of looking at it is that it's a rocket to anywhere. "What's your mission? You need to define that before anything." "The selection of an engine is really mission-based," Case told me. The rocket then flies to suborbital, or even orbital destinations.īefore GO, Case worked on rocket engines at both NASA and Blue Origin, so he's seen a broad sample of both old-school and cutting-edge engine technologies. Air launchers carry a rocket to a certain spot and drop it. Glenn Case is a propulsion engineer who works for Generation Orbit, an Atlanta-based company that builds and hopes to soon fly air-launched rockets. In the end, you can perhaps best evaluate an engine by asking a simple question: Is it the right engine for your rocket, and what you want that rocket to do? More importantly, there are safety considerations: Is the engine reliable? Can we trust it to carry expensive payloads? Or, in some cases, people? Cost is obviously important, and not just the per-engine price tag-there are development costs, operational costs, and the money required to run the ground systems that fuel and launch different vehicles. In reality, you have to include logistical considerations like the availability of the engine and the track record of its manufacturer. Case in point: SpaceX just posted new payload capabilities for their Falcon 9 rocket. But some of those numbers are hard to pin down with complete certainty. You could create a giant spreadsheet comparing thrust-to-weight ratios, specific impulses (efficiency metrics), and payload capabilities. In a perfect world, selecting a rocket engine would be all about performance. Here is a selection of comments posted to some recent SLS engine test articles: These two disparate use cases for the RS-25 often trigger great consternation among armchair rocket scientists. NASA already awarded the company $1.6 billion to start getting its production line ready. That means the engine's manufacturer, Aerojet Rocketdyne, will eventually have to build new ones. The SLS core stage is powered by four RS-25s, and engine 2059 is slated for use on the rocket's second flight, a crewed trip to the moon expected between 20.īut unlike the shuttle, SLS will not reuse its engines-they'll be destroyed with the core stage when it tumbles back into the atmosphere. Those leftover powerplants-16, in all-became hand-me-downs for the Space Launch System, NASA's new heavy lift rocket. But its engines-along with those from Discovery and Atlantis-were swapped with replicas and quietly stowed away. Shortly thereafter, Endeavour became a cherished museum exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The engine was RS-25 number 2059, formerly a space shuttle main engine, last used in 2001 during the final flight of Endeavour. Wing-like to provide lift and cross-range for the reusable first stage during its descent back to Earth.Īft module houses six hydraulically-actuated legs to support and secure the first stage during landing on a moving platform.Two months ago, a rocket engine that will one day blast a crew of astronauts to the moon was test-fired at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Its high thrust and high specific impulse upper stage are capable of accomplishing any mission.įour actuated aerodynamic control surfaces for attitude adjustment during the first stage’s descent and landing.ĭesigned for reuse and minimal maintenance in between flights. Hydrogen-powered upper stage designed for demanding, highly energetic missions to low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), and geosynchronous orbit (GEO).īuilt off of New Shepard’s BE-3 flight heritage, the BE-3U is optimized to operate in the vacuum of space. Twice the volume of traditional five-meter class fairings means room for bigger constellations, heavier payloads, and orbital platforms.
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