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RS-25 engine fired for 500 seconds at NASA Stennis to test new heat shield for Artemis rockets

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NASA fired RS-25 engine No. 10001 for almost eight and a half minutes on 21 October 2026 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at its Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, the agency said. The test supports engines for future Artemis missions to the Moon.

RS-25 engine: A hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 10001 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA Stennis on 21 October 2026
A hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 10001 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA Stennis on 21 October 2026 Photo: NASA/Danny Nowlin (public domain).

What the RS-25 engine test checked

Test teams fired the developmental engine for 500 seconds, the same time RS-25 engines burn during a launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, NASA said. Operators pushed the engine up to the 111% power level, matching the thrust new production engines need to launch SLS and the Orion spacecraft to orbit. The main goals were to acceptance-test RS-25 flight components for future Artemis missions and to validate a new thermal protection system that shields the engine nozzle from the hot environment around SLS during launch. That is the full duration of an SLS launch burn.

Key Facts

  • Engine: RS-25 No. 10001 (developmental)
  • Date: 21 October 2026, Fred Haise Test Stand, NASA Stennis
  • Burn time: 500 seconds
  • Peak power: 111%
  • Four RS-25s give up to 2 million lb of thrust for SLS

Space Launch System power and L3Harris

This developmental engine will not fly, but the hot fire gives NASA and its prime contractor, L3Harris Technologies, critical data to improve engine performance and reliability, NASA said. Four RS-25 engines together produce up to 2 million pounds of thrust to help launch SLS on each Artemis mission. Every RS-25 engine is tested and proven flightworthy at NASA Stennis before use. Tests are run by operators from NASA, L3Harris and Nova Space Solutions. Developmental engines such as No. 10001 are used on the ground to gather data on new parts and processes rather than to fly. NASA released photos of the hot fire the same day.

Where Artemis stands

NASA’s Artemis programme uses the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft to send astronauts to the Moon, and four RS-25 engines power each SLS launch. This test had two jobs at once: proving that flight components are ready for future Artemis missions, and checking that the new thermal protection for the engine nozzle holds up through a full-length burn at the high power level needed by new production engines. The photo NASA released, taken by Danny Nowlin, shows a large plume rising over the Fred Haise Test Stand as the engine fires. The stand is named after Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise. Because the burn matched a full SLS launch in length and reached the thrust level needed for new engines, engineers get data that covers the whole of a launch profile in a single run. TrendDesh has followed recent NASA updates on Artemis, and this test adds hardware data to that work.

Why It Matters: The RS-25 test series decides whether new engines and parts are ready for later Artemis flights, so each successful firing keeps the Moon programme's hardware on schedule.

Also on TrendDesh: Artemis III update: NASA to brief on its Moon timeline and next year's test flight on 23 October · Anil Menon readies for two ISS spacewalks on 29 October and 5 November to add new solar arrays

Source: NASA, 21 Oct 2026 · NASA: Space Launch System · NASA Stennis Space Center

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