NASA engineers at Stennis Space Center tested RS-25 engine No. 2059 on the A-1 Test Stand in March 2016. This was the first flight engine for NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), to be tested at Stennis. The RS-25 is the same engine that powered the space shuttle during 30 years of exploration and is one of the most tested large rocket engines in history, with more than 3,000 starts and more than 1 million seconds of total ground test and flight firing time. At full throttle, each of the four liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen-fueled engines will produce 512,000 pounds of vacuum thrust, generating 10 times the equivalent thrust-to-weight power density of the largest commercial jet engine. What looks like smoke exhaust is actually steam coming from the test stand. During liftoff, the 70-metric-ton configuration of SLS will have 8.8 million pounds of thrust -- 15 percent more than the Saturn V rockets that launched astronauts on journeys to the moon. #stennis #sls #newrocket #exp...