Big Boost For NASA's Artemis Moon Mission: Hot Fire Test Of SLS Rocket's Core Stage Successfully Completed

United States (US)' apex space research and exploration body, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has successfully completed Green Run testing of the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket which is the largest rocket element it has ever built, reports Hindustan Times.

The core stage of the SLS rocket was tested on Thursday (18 March) at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Under the test, the SLS rocket fired its four RS-25 engines for eight minutes and 19 seconds.

Sharing the details of the successful test, NASA's acting administrator Steve Jurczyk said that during the test, the core stage of the rocket generated more than 1.6 million pounds of thrust within seven seconds. He called the SLS an incredible feat of engineering and the only rocket capable of powering America’s next-generation missions that will place the first woman and the next man on the Moon.

This successful test is significant as the previous and the first hot-fire test of the SLS core stage was conducted on 16 January which ended earlier than planned.

The development comes as a big boost for NASA's Artemis I mission under which it will send an uncrewed spacecraft on a test flight around the moon and back to Earth for future missions with astronauts.