Imagine how a twelve million horsepower would be. This is the engine that may take us to Mars someday, and tests have been conducted for the first time at a NASA testing facility.

The RS-25 engine was fired up at the Stennis Space Centre in Mississippi. It burned for nine minutes, consuming nine swimming pools worth of fuel, reported.
“It is the most complicated rocket engine existing in the market, but that’s because it’s the Ferrari of rocket engines,” NASA propulsion engineer Kathryn Crowe said.

Details of the RS-25 rocket engine tests conducted by NASA:

Power Tests:
The engine features a significant boost in power and efficiency over rockets made in past — even though this design dates back to the 1970s.

NASA needs it if it is serious about returning to manned space flight. It lost that capability with the final flight of the Space Shuttle in 2011.
And orbit is just the first step: Going further is much harder.

“Orbital velocity, just for starters, is over 17,000mph (27359km/h), and that only gets you a couple hundred miles off the surface,” says SLS spokesman Martin Burkey. “Going farther requires going faster. Much faster.”

At the moment one of these engines weighs roughly double than that of a modern fighter jet’s, also, it produces eight times more thrust. That means 232,000kg of pressure.

“That’s enough to push 10 giant aircraft carriers around the ocean at nearly 25mph (40km/h),” Mr Burkey says.
In practical terms, this power in the rocket could lift a 70 metric ton payload out of orbit.

Stress Tests:
The officials further reported, “The engine has so far completed six out of the seven scheduled live-fire tests.”

“It must prove to be capable of withstanding temperatures as low as -240C, where the fuel enters the engine, and as high as 3300C during ‘full burn’ in the exhausts”.
Then there are the stresses and pressures of great speed.

“At such high speeds, even the smallest hitch in the process can cause massive problems, which is why the engines need to be tested extensively in a controlled situation before even thinking about leaving the ground,” Mr Burkey said.

The next big test is combining four of the RS-25 engines together for a full simulated launch.

It’s hoped that it will eventually boost Orion manned space capsules out of Earth’s orbit, and perhaps even to Mars.

(with agency inputs)
By Sree Teja