MS to the Moon: NASA Stennis support facilities play vital role in Artemis engine testing

HANCOCK COUNTY, Miss. (WXXV) — Last week, in our Mississippi to the Moon series, we took you inside the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA Stennis Space Center, part of the nation’s largest rocket propulsion test site, and explored the critical role it has played in NASA’s Artemis Program missions.

For our second part to this series, WXXV’s Megan Fayard takes us to the water and gas facilities that make engine testing possible.

Various facilities across the Stennis Test Complex play a critical role in successful RS-25 engine testing. First, we take a look at the High Pressure Gas Facility, which not only supports those tests, but also enables the wide range of work being carried out throughout Stennis.

“It all comes through here. Everything that happens on the site is supported in some form or fashion from this area here,” said Kevin Oramous, NASA Test Operation Engineer. “This place doesn’t get quite the credit that everyone else does, but without it, none of the other stuff could happen.”

Gaseous nitrogen, helium, hydrogen and air are created and stored right here at the gas facility — which engineers call the heart of Stennis. Those gases are then pumped from the facility to other areas of the test complex.

“We have a roughly seven mile pipeline that goes throughout the whole area. What makes us really cool is we get to supply the pressurization systems for the tanks that test the engines,” said Oramous.

Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen are used in the testing of RS-25 engines, but gases produced in this facility play an important role as well.

“So, the liquid hydrogen is easy. We turn that into gaseous hydrogen and we pump that all the way to the test stands and that uses a pressurization system for the hydrogen tanks on A-1 to support the RS-25. Then for the nitrogen system we do the same setup. We pump it up to the test stand and we use the nitrogen as a pressurization system for the liquid oxygen tank,” he said. “Without any of this stuff, none of this other stuff can happen. We can’t do these cool engine tests without having a site-wide system that is able to feed these facilities with gases.”

Another vital facility is the High Pressure Industrial Water Facility. Engine testing would not be possible without its massive 66-million-gallon reservoir, which supplies the enormous volume of water needed to support test operations safely and efficiently.

“So, we pull in all the canal water from the Pearl River, all into this huge pond right behind us right over here. All these engines basically just suck all that water and just send it over to these huge valves — these huge pipelines, all the way to the test stands,” said Huy Nguyen, Electrical Controls Lead for Support Areas.

During an engine test, water is used for cooling and sound suppression, which is why large clouds of steam can be seen coming from the test stand during a hot fire.

“If you saw over by the test stand there are these huge J-deflectors is what they call them. They will use the water for one: all the cooling because there is a a lot of fire and brimstone that goes through the test stands, but also sound suppression,” said Nguyen. “They figured out early on that whenever they ran a test, there were windows that were shattering miles away, so we needed a lot of sound suppression to keep that to a minimum.”

During RS-25 testing for the Artemis program missions, the A-1 test stand requires such an enormous volume of water that the nearby reservoir is nearly drained during hot-fires.

“All of our rocket engines that we test over here at A-1, we run a minimum of seven engines — seven pumps, so that we can supply enough water over there. Each of these engines supply like 30,000 gallons per minute. We run them basically up to like an hour every single time, just to make sure everything checks correctly,” Nguyen said.

Every facility and engineer plays a critical role in the success of these engine tests — each one an essential contribution to NASA’s progress in this new era of space exploration.

“How does it feel knowing you, in a way, played a part [in the Artemis missions]?” asked Megan Fayard.

“Oh, I have huge pride. You’ll know that my big nerd comes out whenever I talk about Artemis. Just seeing that we were able to send people back over to the moon after 50 years… that is a huge accomplishment for them… kind of a feather in my cap that I was able to be part of the team,” said Nguyen.