BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. – NASA is one step closing to going where no man has gone before. Engineers at Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis have mounted a new RS-25 rocket on their A-1 Test stand, and they are preparing to test new engine control technology that will monitor and control engine performance. The new controls replace technology that has been used since the 1970s according NASA’s RS-25 Project Manager, to Gary Benton. The control testing will start this fall and it will eventually be used on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Test launches for the SLS rocket are expected to start as early as late 2017. The first crewed mission for the SLS rocket is scheduled sometime around 2021 and may take astronauts as far as a distant asteroid or Mars.
