SLS Rocket "Hot Fire" Test This Afternoon

They will be firing the first stage of the new SLS rocket in a test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. It should be interesting. If you want to have a look, the live coverage starts at 4:20 eastern on NASA TV (if you have access to that channel on your cable), or you can see it at a number of locations on the internet.

YouTube, Space Flight Now and others...

Search for “SLS Hotfire Test Live” or something like that.

 

Regardless of the expenses and everything of the program, I really want to see that thing fly.

 

NASA - this is the culmination of decades of design and research! A true triumph of humanity.

Elon Musk - hold my beer.

It's cool they are hot firing the thing finally but sheesh, SpaceX did 3 hot fires on the same motors in 4 hours, and then decided to swap a couple out. Then they'll launch it and if it explodes their attitude is "that was cool, let's fix that on the one under construction in the garage out back."

I love NASA but they need to get a little more flexible and just do it already.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/content/live-coverage-of-the-sls-green-run-hot-fire-test

LIVE RIGHT NOW -

Okay, not quite "right now"

 

Within an hour as of now!

 

5 minutes.....

 

1 minute......

 

Didn't blow up so thats good.

 

Managed to see this with two minutes to go. Thanks!

Even if most of the coverage was the steam being created. WTF?

 

Yeah, that's a plus.

One big-ass steam generator.

 

At my old job, I made the ducting that carries the LOX iirc. Guess 4-5 years later they're still good. I didn't think they were actually going to work, and I never heard anything about them testing them. Guess it works after all.

 

We'll, the engines had an issue. You might be getting a phone call

Just kidding of course, that's really cool!

 

Sorry, they'll have to talk to the manager. Funny thing. I had to train someone how to make them, since no one else knew the full routine. Guy put in his 2 weeks about a month after I left.

It is pretty cool they held up. Rocket might even fly this decade. Wasn't really that cool dealing with it. Boss barely had a ged, so couldn't tell that the prints were bs. Making 10ft long curved ducts with 3 compound angled joints, assembled by hand, and the whole assembly was 3D scanned to within 0.060" of true position. Stressful is an appropriate word.

Insert typical rant of 'your taxes at work lining pockets' as well.

 

Interesting article about the SLS program.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...stem-rocket-shuts-down-after-just-67-seconds/

 

Interesting, but lots of spin in that piece. Heavy use of the technique of stating a fact and then stating the "reason" for that fact which essentially is the opinion of the writer. So, when you read it, it "seems" like a factual article because it does indeed contain many factual statements.

Not to say there aren't plenty of problems in the program (as many political as technical), just that some of the "reasons" stated are not accurate. And that is definitely *my* opinion, but at least I'm clarifying that up front.

This will likely turn out not to be a huge problem and then the decision will be if they should spend the time to do another hot fire or not before shipping the rocket out to KSC. They also have the option of doing another hot fire on the pad, as they did with the space shuttle main engines originally.

 

That's pretty pathetic.

What's the matter, they lose all the documentation on the Saturn 5?

 

Apparently nothing serious...

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2021...ctions-indicate-core-stage-in-good-condition/