NASA Hits Green Run Midpoint, Eyes End-of-Year SLS Static Fire

NASA engineers have reached the midpoint of “Green Run” testing as the first Space Launch System (SLS) core inches ever closer to a planned full-mission-duration static-firing of its four RS-25 engines, possibly later this fall. The space agency revealed Thursday that the fourth of eight critical Green Run tests successfully concluded on Wednesday, 5 August. The giant rocket, teamed with a pair of five-segment Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs)—which arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida in June from prime contractor Northrop Grumman Corp.’s test site in Promontory, Utah—will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon late in 2021 for the long-awaited Artemis-1 mission. In doing so, it will demonstrate the first human-rated space vehicle on a voyage to lunar distance since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

Image Credit: NASA

“Progress!” tweeted NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday. “The fourth test of the @NASA_SLS core stage Green Run test series is complete. Teams finished testing the main propulsion system components within the core stage that connect the rocket’s four RS-25 engines.” Core stage prime contractor Boeing added that this latest test had successfully “verified command-and-control and checked for leaks”.

Green Run testing on the 212-foot-tall (64.6-meter) SLS core stage is being conducted in the B-2 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss. The core will be powered by four shuttle-era RS-25 engines, generating a combined impulse in excess of 1.6 million pounds (760,000 kg), which, when combined with the twin SRBs will give the SLS a total thrust at liftoff of 8.8 million pounds (3.4 million kg). This represents an approximately 15-percent increase over the long-since-retired Saturn V, which currently still stands as the largest and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status.

Video Credit: AmericaSpace

Testing of SLS hardware has taken place on numerous fronts across the United States. The five-segment boosters—which derive in design from their shuttle-heritage predecessors—were put through extensive evaluations, culminating in a pair of Qualification Motor (QM-1 and QM-2) firings at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah, in March 2015 and June 2016, which tested their performance at “maximum” anticipated operating temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) and “minimum” anticipated operating temperatures of 4.5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit).

More recently, five Structural Test Articles (STAs) of the critical components of the SLS core stage—its upper segment, intertank, liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank and engine section—were put through 199 tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Ala. The upper section and intertank were tested first, followed by the engine section which wrapped up in February 2018.

The SLS core stage is powered by four shuttle-heritage RS-25 engines. Photo Credit: NASA

More recently, last December the 149-foot-long (45.4-meter) liquid hydrogen tank, the biggest core stage element, was tested to destruction, and finally the 70-foot-long (21-meter) liquid oxygen tank was itself put through the wringer. In the case of both tanks, they endured far more punishing pressures and stresses than they can ever expect to receive on a real mission and provided not only valuable engineering data, but also a close-to-prediction endorsement of computer models.

But the real test of the core stage for the actual SLS which will power Artemis-1 to the Moon took the form of the Green Run, conducted in the B-2 Test Stand at Stennis. Built in the 1960s, the stand is part of a dual-position, vertical static-firing complex upon which the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V and its quintet of F-1 engines were tested more than five decades ago and, more recently, housed the Main Propulsion Test Article framework to test the Space Shuttle’s main engines.

The SLS for Artemis-1 will be powered off the launch pad by the four RS-25 engines of the core stage and a pair of five-segment Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). Image Credit: NASA

As part of preparing for the much larger and taller SLS, the stand saw extensive upgrades and the addition of around a million extra pounds (453,500 kg) of steel to extend its framework an additional 100 feet (33 meters) and lengthen its large derrick crane. The new-look B-2 Test Stand was declared operationally “ready” in December 2018.

The Green Run is so named because its “run” of eight fully-integrated test phases will be conducted on new and as-yet-untried (or “green”) flight hardware. Last summer, Mr. Bridenstine stressed the importance of the Green Run in ensuring the safety of astronauts on future SLS flights, increasing the probability of achieving American boots on the Moon by 2024 and identifying technical issues “earlier rather than later”. In August 2019, a full-size structural replica of the SLS core stage, known as the “pathfinder”, was installed into the B-2 Test Stand for a series of fit-checks.

The liquid oxygen tank Structural Test Article (STA) sits in the test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss., ahead of final testing. Photo Credit: NASA

And earlier this year, the real SLS core stage for Artemis-1 made its way from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La., to Stennis. Delivered aboard the Pegasus barge in the second week of January, it arrived at the B-2 Test Stand dock and was lifted into the stand under optimal wind and weather conditions on the 21st and 22nd. Standing 212 feet (64.6 meters) tall, it is the largest core stage ever built by NASA, dwarfing even the 138-foot-tall (42-meter) S-IC first stage of the Saturn V.

“The SLS core stage is an engineering feat that includes not only the largest rocket propellant tanks ever built but also sophisticated avionics and main propulsion systems,” said Lisa Bates, SLS deputy stages manager. “While the rocket is designed to evolve over time for different mission objectives, the core stage design will remain basically the same. The Green Run acceptance test gives NASA the confidence needed to know the new core stage will perform again and again as it is intended.”

Aerojet Rocketdyne has contributed multiple propulsive elements to the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion vehicles. Most visible are the four RS-25 core-stage engines, which will provide around 25 percent of the muscle to get the giant rocket off the launch pad. Photo Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne/NASA

The first of the eight-test Green Run series was completed shortly afterwards, in the form of the “Modal Test”, which utilized mechanical “shakers” to impose dynamic forces on the suspended core stage to identify primary bending modes. Information from this test will aid the verification of vehicle models needed to operate the SLS Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) systems. “Engineers also manually use an impulse hammer to test the spider crane, which holds the stage in place, to help establish a baseline for any impact the test stand or external hardware could have on Green Run testing data,” NASA explained. “Data from the modal test will be used to verify structural vibration modes and flight control parameters for the core stage design.”

The worldwide march of COVID-19 pushed Stennis into a “Level Four” posture on the scale of NASA’s response framework to the coronavirus pandemic in March, with only personnel needed to perform mission-essential activities relating to the safety and security of the center permitted on site.

SLS Green Run core stage testing is ongoing in the B-2 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center (SSC) in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Photo Credit: NASA

Work resumed in a reduced capacity in mid-May and at the end of June the second Green Run test—the “Avionics Test”—was successfully completed. As part of this test, the rocket’s avionics, which are distributed throughout the core stage, were powered-up and checked out. This included the flight control computers and electronics and a multitude of sensors which gather flight data and montiro the overall health of the core stage in flight. The third test, dubbed “Fail-Safes” and completed in early July, checked out the rocket’s safety systems which will shut down operations during testing and incorporated several simulations of potential problems.

Completion of the fourth (“Propulsion”) test puts the SLS core stage for Artemis-1 firmly at the halfway mark in its bid to wrap up the Green Run before year’s end. Under the requirements of the fourth test, the core was checked for leaks and command-and-control operations were evaluated for the Main Propulsion System (MPS) elements which directly adjoin the four RS-25 engines.

Video Credit: AmericaSpace

The remaining four tests, due to be conducted later this summer and into the fall, will steadily ratchet-up the pressure on the core stage. Next up will be a test of the core stage Thrust Vector Control (TVC) and hydraulic systems, a simulated launch countdown to validate event-sequencing and timeline parameters and a demonstration of loading and draining the SLS tanks with over 700,000 pounds (320,000 kg) of cryogenic propellants.

Finally, before the end of 2020, NASA expects to conduct the eighth and last Green Run test: a full-mission-duration test-firing of the four RS-25 engines. Completion of these remaining milestones in this most difficult of years for humanity will be a remarkable accomplishment in itself, and will position the SLS Program amply to deliver the core stage from NASA-Stennis to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida late this year or early in 2021. Once there, it will join the recently-arrived SRBs and Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA) for the beginning of final assembly operations for launch late next fall.

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