Security News > 2021 > March > If at first you don't succeed: Engineers power up the computers of NASA's monster SLS core stage once again

NASA has fired up the avionics of the Artemis I core stage ahead of tomorrow's planned redo of the prematurely terminated hotfire test.

Those boosters are missing a key ingredient: the SLS core stage, which continues to languish on the B-2 test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

Once managers give the nod on the test day, the stage's tanks will be filled with 700,000 gallons of propellant.

NASA had hopes of launching the uncrewed Artemis I to the Moon this year, although this is looking increasingly unlikely following, firstly, the requirement to repeat the hotfire and, more recently, a delay for the repeat run caused by the need to repair a liquid oxygen valve on the stage.

Should tomorrow's test go well, NASA estimates it will take about a month to refurbish the core stage and its engines before shipping the hardware to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will finally be mated to the waiting solid rocket boosters.

Still, ongoing delays to Artemis aside, the activation of the stage's computers indicates that the test is imminent.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/03/17/sls_green_run_2/