NASA tested RS-25 engine No. 10001 on Oct. 21 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at the agency's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Test teams fired the developmental engine for almost eight-and-a-half minutes (500 seconds), the same amount of time RS-25 engines fire during launch of NASA's SLS (Space Launch System) rocket.

The test is part of the effort to support future Artemis missions, which will use the SLS as its launch vehicle. The RS-25 engines, inherited from the space shuttle program and adapted to the demands of the new rocket, must demonstrate their reliability under conditions that faithfully reproduce those of an actual launch, including the full duration of the powered flight phase.

The Stennis Space Center, on the Mississippi coast, is NASA's facility for large-thrust rocket engine hot-fire testing. The Fred Haise Test Stand, where the test was conducted, is used for this type of developmental engine validation campaigns before integration into SLS flights.