Nuked Nasa will make another attempt next month to test-fire its massive space launch system rocket. Its first attempt was cut short, the agency said Friday night.
The rocket’s 212-foot-tall core stage will fire its four engines for eight minutes at NASA’s Stennis space center in Mississippi. The attempt is the last milestone’green run’ test before the rocket gets shipped to Florida for its debut launch toward the moon.
All four of the rocket’s rocket’s engines ignited together for the first time this month. The SLS core has been in development for a decade, and has consistently been late and over budget.
A second hot fire test will allow the team to repeat operations from the first test. Nasa says it will also obtain data on how the core stage and the engines perform over a longer period.
Nasa is targeting November for the SLS’s first launch. But the agency’s inspector general and the government accountability office say that’s unlikely. Instead, they indicated the launch will likely to slip into 2022.
