BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss., Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Officials at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi have announced an initiative they say will shape the future of the rocket engine testing facility.
Stennis Director Gene Goldman outlined plans for the center to test Aerojet AJ26 rocket engines for the Orbital Sciences Corp. as part of a NASA partnership with Aerojet and Orbital.
"We're excited about this program and the opportunity to collaborate with two of the world's leading space technology companies," Goldman said. "This also helps pave the way to the future for Stennis. Testing the AJ26 engine not only supplies a service for the Taurus II program, it also provides Stennis a unique opportunity (that) will help sustain the skills and capabilities we need for future test projects."
The AJ26 is the first new engine in years to be tested at Stennis and is representative of the commercial work the facility now is pursuing, officials said. The center also conducts RS-68 rocket engine testing for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
Orbital is under contract with NASA to provide eight cargo missions to the International Space Station through 2015. The AJ26 Aerojet engines will power Orbital's Taurus II space launch vehicle for those missions.
