Stennis Space Center

The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States. It sits on the banks of the Pearl River at the border between Mississippi and Louisiana.

As of 2012, it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. More than 50 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies are using SSC for their rocket testing.

History

NASA needed a rocket testing site between the Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, where the rockets were built, and the launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The site also needed to be reachable by barge, because the rocket stages for Apollo were too large to move over land. The Apollo engines were also too loud for the existing test stands at Marshall Space Flight Center near Huntsville, Alabama, so a more isolated place was needed. After searching many coastal areas, including Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and islands in the Caribbean and Pacific, NASA announced the Mississippi Test Facility (now Stennis Space Center) on October 25, 1961. It was built on a high area beside the East Pearl River in Hancock County, Mississippi. Before construction, five small communities and the northern part of Pearlington had to be moved off the land, affecting about 700 families. More than 3,200 pieces of private land were acquired.

The site covered 13,500 acres (55 km²) and was surrounded by a 125,000-acre (506 km²) buffer zone to reduce noise. Its large test stands were first used to test the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets. Starting in 1971, all Space Shuttle Main Engines were certified for flight there. The site was renamed several times and was named after Mississippi senator John C. Stennis on May 20, 1988. After the Apollo and Shuttle programs ended, the base was used less, which hurt the nearby communities. Over time, other government groups and companies have moved in and out, and overall they have brought an important economic benefit to the area.

Rocket propulsion test complex

The Rocket Propulsion Test Complex is a rocket testing area that was built in 1965 as part of the John C. Stennis Space Center. It played an important role in developing the Saturn V rocket. The A-1, A-2, and B-1/B-2 test stands were named a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Engineers at the NASA Engineering & Science Directorate (ESD) at the center run and take care of the rocket test stands.

A-1/A-2 Test stand

The A-1 and A-2 stands are the two smaller of the original three test stands at Stennis Space Center. They were built to test and certify the second stage of the Saturn V, the S-II, which launched the Apollo program. Construction began in 1963 and finished in 1966. Each stand is about 200 feet (61 m) tall and can handle more than 1 million pounds of thrust and temperatures up to 6,000 °F (3,320 °C). Each stand can supply Liquid Hydrogen and liquid oxygen, along with gases such as helium, hydrogen, and nitrogen, which can be used as purge or pressurizing gases. In 1966, the S-II stage was fired in tests at the A-2 stand, and its five Rocketdyne J-2 engines together produced one million pounds of thrust. The stands helped certify S-II stages and J-2 engines until the end of the Apollo program in the early 1970s.

In 1971, the center announced it would test engines for the Space Shuttle program, called the SSME. The stands were changed to fit these smaller engines, and testing began in 1975. Testing continued until July 29, 2009. As the shuttle program ended, the stands began testing the next generation of rocket engines, including the J-2X engine for the SLS upper stage. The stands also tested Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 engines for Orbital Sciences Corp., which partnered with NASA to provide cargo flights to the International Space Station. Orbital's Antares rocket was powered by a pair of these engines. The first test of the RS-25 engine for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket took place in 2015, and testing of all 16 heritage RS-25 engines for the first four SLS missions in NASA's Artemis program was completed in 2019. In March 2020, the A-1 Test Stand was renamed the Fred Haise Test Stand, in honor of the Apollo 13 astronaut and Biloxi, Mississippi native.

B-1/B-2 Test stand

The B-1/B-2 test stand is where rocket engines are fired while held in place. It can handle a maximum load of 11M lbf. It was first built in the 1960s to test five F-1 engines from a Saturn-V S1-C first stage at the same time, from 1967 to 1970. In October 1966, a full test booster called S-IC-T was sent to SSC by barge down the river. It was placed in the B-2 test stand on December 17, 1966. In March 1967, it was fired twice, for 15 seconds and then for 60 seconds. These tests showed that the stand and its equipment worked well together. Boeing workers removed the booster from the stand on March 24, 1967.

Later, the stand was changed to test the Space Shuttle Main Engine. Today, Stennis leases the B-1 position to Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, which tests RS-68 engines for the Delta IV rocket. NASA has prepared the B-2 position to test the core stage of the Space Launch System. In early 2021, the core stage, with four RS-25D engines, was placed on the stand for fuel filling and draining tests and two hot-fire tests.

A-3 Test stand

In August 2007, NASA began building the A-3 test stand at SSC. The stand was meant to test J-2X engines in conditions like those at high altitude, where there is almost no air. A-3 can also be used as a sea-level test facility. However, the Constellation Program was cancelled in 2010, so the stand is expected to sit unused once it is finished. It may still be changed to test a new mission when needed. In 2014, journalists writing for Bloomberg News and the Washington Times criticized the continued work on the $350 million test stand. They described it as a wasteful earmark, a special spending item, added by Mississippi U.S. senator Roger F. Wicker.

Rocket Lab, an American-New Zealand company that launches rockets for others, plans to use the A-3 stand to develop and test its Archimedes reusable rocket engine.

E Test stand complex

In the 1990s, a new test complex called "E" was built to test many kinds of small engines, parts, and ideas. It has four test stands. The E1 stand tested a thrust chamber for the Blue Origin company's new BE-3 rocket engine in 2012. In 2014, an AJ26 engine being tested there for a future Orbital Sciences Antares launch failed and caused major damage. In 2015, Aerojet Rocketdyne agreed to upgrade E-1 so it could test parts of the AR-1 engine. E1 has three test cells, and the largest can handle engines with up to 750,000 pounds-force of thrust. The E2 stand has test cells for engines and for large rocket stages. Its first cell was built in 1993 to support work on the National Aerospace Plane. After 2013, E2 was changed to test liquid methane engines, with money from SpaceX, the Mississippi Development Authority, and NASA. Starting in 2014, SpaceX tested parts of its Raptor engine there, including a preburner component.

The E3 stand has two cells for testing parts and small-scale combustion devices. One cell can handle devices with up to 60,000 pounds-force of thrust, and the other can handle devices with up to 25,000 pounds-force. The second cell can also test devices that use hydrogen peroxide. Tests in the late 1990s helped lead to the development of hybrid rocket motors. The E4 stand has four large concrete cells and was designed to test engines with up to 500,000 pounds-force of thrust, as well as powerpack systems. It was proposed in 2000 to be built near the H1 test stand.

H-1 Test stand

In 2001, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization proposed building a $140 million facility at the H-1 test stand. It was meant to test a proposed Space-Based Laser, and to check the beam quality, efficiency, and power levels of a prototype megawatt-class hydrogen fluoride laser.

In 2007, British manufacturer Rolls-Royce plc has been operating an outdoor aero-engine test facility built on the old H1 test area. Rolls-Royce built the facility because of noise concerns at its UK testing facility at Hucknall Airfield near its headquarters in Derby. In 2013, Rolls-Royce opened a second test stand.

List of center directors

The following people have served as the Stennis Space Center director:

Tenant facilities

See also: Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

In 2005, the center was home to over 30 government agencies and private companies. The largest were parts of the United States Navy, with about 3,500 people, far more than the NASA workers based there.

Other tenants included groups from several agencies. The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS). It designs, builds, runs, and cares for a network of buoys and coastal stations that collect data. Other NOAA groups there were the National Centers for Environmental Information, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. The US Geological Survey also had a Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility at the center. The Navy's Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NAVMETOCCOM), which was based at the center, reported to Naval Information Dominance Forces, previously United States Fleet Forces Command. The Naval Research Laboratory and the Naval Oceanographic Office, which had about 1,000 workers, provided ocean information to the Department of Defense. Navy Special Boat Team 22 and NAVSCIATTS also trained there, and the Coast Guard had a Port Security Unit 308 at the center.

University

Several universities work at the site. Mississippi State University runs the High Performance Computing Collaboratory, a Geosystems Research Institute, and the Northern Gulf Institute. The University of Southern Mississippi has a High Performance Visualization Center and a Department of Marine Science. Companies also test here, including Rolls-Royce at its outdoor engine testing centre, United Launch Alliance for engine testing, and the Lockheed Martin Mississippi Space and Technology Center. Skydweller Aero uses the site for uncrewed solar aircraft flights. The Mississippi Army Ammunition Plant was a former tenant.

The INFINITY Science Center is a non-profit museum that hosts the NASA visitor center for the Stennis Space Center. It is located near the MS/LA border. Its exhibits cover Mississippi natural history, NASA, space, planets, stars, weather, and Earth science. Displays include the Apollo 4 command module, a full-sized International Space Station module, and a cutaway model of the Orion spacecraft. The center officially opened in April 2012 to replace the older StenniSphere visitor center, which closed its doors on February 15, 2012. Many of StenniSphere's exhibits have been moved into INFINITY.