NASA Spaceflight by Philip Sloss June 29, 2020
Boeing powered up the Core Stage for the first Space Launch System on the B-2 Test Stand at the NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi last week following a long stand down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The first Core Stage is at the outdoor facility for a Green Run test campaign that culminates in first-time propellant loading followed by an inaugural test-firing.
Teams got within a week of the power up milestone in mid-March when the COVID-19 emergency forced much of the United States to shelter at home and stay there for several weeks. Stennis was one of multiple NASA facilities where all on-site work was halted.
Before walking away indefinitely and leaving the Core Stage to an occasional visit from a skeleton ride-out crew, work had to take a few steps backward to leave things in a stable configuration for long-term storage.
After two months away from the test stand, about two-thirds of the NASA and contractor team gradually began returning to on-site work in groups with the remainder working remotely to help resume testing.
Power up testing is the second of eight test cases in the Green Run campaign; beginning with the initial power-on, Boeing hopes to follow a revised schedule that would lead to the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) propellant loading test countdown in the early autumn, followed by the hot fire test a few weeks later.
Stage powered up for the first time in the test stand
Test Case 2 started early last week in the B-2 Test Stand during bad weather, which slowed down the initial power up of the test stand and vehicle computer systems. “We got started on June 22 and had pretty bad weather at the beginning of the week, had a few problems that slowed us down with some of the power supplies coming from Mississippi Power, and so we really didn’t get into powering up the vehicle until [Thursday the 25th],†Mark Nappi, Boeing Green Run Test Manager, said on June 26.
More:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/06/boeing-sls-core-green-run/
