NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Engineers conduct a hot-fire test of subscale main injector hardware March 9 at the East Test Stand at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The test, part of a series conducted at Marshall, supports development of the RS-68 engine for Ares V, the cargo launch vehicle that will deliver large-scale hardware and systems to space for exploration missions to the moon. The main injector is a key engine component. It injects and mixes hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants in the combustion chamber, where they are ignited and burned to produce thrust. During the tests, engineers fired the injector horizontally for durations of 10 to 20 seconds.

A cluster of five RS-68 engines will power the core stage of Ares V. The engine will be an upgraded version of those now used in the Delta IV, the largest of the Delta rocket family developed in the 1990s by the U.S. Air Force for its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program.

Image credit: NASA

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