Thrust Frame Adapter Fabrication for A-1 Test Stand Begins
Production of Key Equipment Paves Way for NASA SLS RS-25 Testing, NASA Marshall
“NASA plans to begin testing RS-25 engines for its new Space Launch System (SLS) in the fall of 2014, and the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi has a very big — literally — item to complete on the preparation checklist.
Fabrication recently began at Stennis on a new 7,755-pound thrust frame adapter for the A-1 Test Stand to enable testing of the engines that will provide core-stage power for NASA’s SLS. The stand component is scheduled to be completed and installed by November 2013.”
Dumb question. Since the SSME and the RS-25 are almost identical why did all this extra hardware have to be built?
Sustainability of employment?
I would bet some serious money that the original hardware was irreversibly modified and used somewhere else or on something else
from the link
The J-2X equipment installed on the A-1 Test Stand now cannot be used to
test RS-25 engines since it does not match the engine specifications
and thrust requirements. For instance, the J-2X engine is capable of
producing 294,000 pounds of thrust. The RS-25 engine will produce
approximately 530,000 pounds of thrust.
Doug, SSME’s have been tested at Stennis and at MSFC since the early 1980’s. I ask again, why all of the new hardware?
As Doug mentioned, the equipment that is currently installed does not support the RS-25 engine (or SSME). As a result the hardware had to be changed to support a different engine.
And as I said, they have been testing these engines there for 30 years, why did they need to fabricate new hardware?
NBC News has stated that some reverse engineering is being done on the Saturn V F-1 rocket “although it is unclear whether that engine is going to be used” for the SLS.
http://science.nbcnews.com/…