NASA will perform a second hotfire test of the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi no earlier than the last week of February, SpaceNews reported Friday.
The second static fire test of four RS-25 engines of the SLS core stage is the final step in the Green Run test campaign that kicked off a year ago. The test rerun was planned after the initial hotfire test fell short of the planned 485 seconds when a hydraulic system for one of the engines reached an “intentionally conservative” limit that prompted the flight computer to trigger a shutdown during the test.
NASA said engineers will upgrade the conservative logic parameters for the upcoming test, which will run for at least four minutes, and that it will take about a month to refurbish the SLS core stage following the second Green Run static-fire test before delivering it to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The SLS core stage will be part of the Artemis 1 unmanned lunar orbital test flight, which is expected to launch in November 2021.