NASA just swapped a 10-year-old Artemis II engine with one nearly twice its age – Ars Technica
2025-04-30T17:40:25Z
One of the engines on NASA’s next Space Launch System rocket requires repairs.
A couple of weeks ago, ground teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida removed one of the four main engines from the Space Launch System rocket slated to send four astronauts on a voyage around the Moon next year.
NASA officials ordered the removal of one of the massive rocket’s RS-25 main engines after discovering a hydraulic leak on the engine’s main oxidizer valve actuator, which controls the flow of super-cold liquid oxygen propellant into the engine’s main combustion chamber, an agency spokesperson told Ars.
In its place, technicians installed another RS-25 engine from NASA’s inventory to the bottom of the rocket’s core stage, which is standing vertical on its mobile launch platform inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy. Teams began integrating the replacement engine with the rocket last Friday and are in the process of firmly securing it in the Engine 4 position on the core stage, the NASA spokesperson said.
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This is the first time NASA has replaced a main engine on the SLS core stage. The space agency earmarked individual RS-25 engines for the first four flights of the Space Launch System rocket a decade ago. Those assignments were locked in until now.
What’s more, workers swapped the engines with the rocket vertical on its launch platform as NASA assembles the vehicle for the Artemis II mission, the first human flight on the Space Launch System. The 10-day mission will send an Orion crew capsule with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen around the far side of the Moon and back to Earth. Artemis II will be the first flight of astronauts to such distances since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.
Artemis II is scheduled for launch in early 2026. The schedule is primarily driven by the readiness of the Orion spacecraft. “The replacement does not affect the mission timeline, and the engine with the leak will be repaired for a future flight,” the NASA spokesperson said.
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