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starship-design: FW: SSRT: Qualification testing on X-33 flight engines
-----Original Message-----
From: listserv@ds.cc.utexas.edu [mailto:listserv@ds.cc.utexas.edu]On
Behalf Of Chris W. Johnson
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 1:33 PM
To: Single Stage Rocket Technology News
Subject: SSRT: Qualification testing on X-33 flight engines
From <http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/releases/2001/01-051.html>:
For Release: Feb. 7, 2001
Release: 01-051
Qualification testing on X-33 flight engines now underway at Stennis
Space Center, Miss.
Qualification test firings of the unique engines designed to propel
America's X-33 space plane into high-speed, suborbital flight in 2003
began Tuesday at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in Bay St.
Louis, Miss.
The ignition test went the full scheduled duration of 1.1 seconds
with no observed anomalies.
Initial tandem test firings of the XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike engines
will be short bursts such as this, eventually leading to durations
required to send the unpiloted vehicle from a launch pad in
California to landings in either Utah or Montana.
The engines will power the X-33, a half-scale, sub-orbital flight
demonstrator of technology required for a reusable launch vehicle.
"Initial indications are all test objectives were met in this first
test of the flight engines," said Mike McKeon, program manager for
the XRS-2200 aerospike engine at the Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power
business of The Boeing Company. "We are now reviewing the data and
preparing to move into longer duration testing."
"I'm excited about beginning this phase of testing," said Dr. Don
Chenevert, NASA's X-33 project manager at Stennis. "I'm confident the
remainder of dual-engine testing will perform equally as well as this
initial ignition test."
Eight more test firings of the twin flight engines are planned at
Stennis before they are delivered to Lockheed Martin's X-33 assembly
facility in Palmdale, Calif.
Fourteen single-engine test firings of a development configuration of
the unique Aerospike engine were successfully completed at Stennis
Space Center in May 2000.
Boeing Rocketdyne developed the XRS-2200 Aerospike engine at its
Canoga Park, Calif., facility. Final engine assembly was done by the
NASA/Boeing Rocketdyne team at Stennis Space Center.
The X-33 project is being developed under a cooperative agreement
between NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver, Colo.
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the X-33
program for NASA.