starship-design: FW: SSRT: Qualification testing on X-33 flight engines

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

-----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.