Engine test for NASA’s heavy-lift SLS rocket cuts off early, but achieves goals
News Brief: NASA put a developmental model of the RS-25 engine for its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket through a hot-fire test today at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in attendance. Although the test firing ended at 319 seconds rather than the originally planned 500 seconds, officials said the test achieved all its planned objectives. NASASpaceflight.com quoted sources as saying that the premature cutoff was due to a liquid hydrogen transfer issue at the facility, rather than any problem with the engine itself. The SLS’ first flights will use engines left over from the space shuttle program, and newly built Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines are to be delivered in the 2020s.