Testing to begin on NASA's new heavy-lift rocket engine

J-2X Oxidizer turbopump

NASA is ready to test its new J-2X rocket engine, designed to power the upper stage of future heavy-lift launch vehicles. The fully assembled engine is installed in the A-2 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where it will undergo a series of test firings over several months.

"The J-2X goes beyond the limits of its historic predecessor and achieves higher thrust, performance, and reliability than the J2," said Mike Kynard, manager of the J-2X upper stage engine project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

The test stand, which supported the space shuttle main engine project, has been modified to accommodate the J-2X engine's different shape. In addition to the structural, electrical and plumbing modifications, a new engine start system was installed and control systems were upgraded on the stand. The liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen transfer lines that dated back to the 1960s were replaced.

Fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the J-2X engine will generate 294,000 pounds of thrust in its primary operating mode to propel a spacecraft into low-Earth orbit.

By changing the mixture ratio of liquid oxygen to liquid hydrogen, the J–2X can operate in a secondary mode of 242,000 pounds of thrust required to power a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit to the moon, an asteroid or other celestial destination. The J-2X can start and restart in space to support a variety of mission requirements.

The A-2 Test Stand originally was used to test Saturn V rocket stages for NASA's Apollo Program. In the mid-1970s, the stand was modified from Apollo Program parameters to allow testing of space shuttle main engines.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., designed and built the J-2X for NASA.