NASA is one step closer to deep-space travel now that the largest and most powerful rocket booster ever built has passed the first of two flight-qualifying tests. The booster successfully fired for two minutes during the Wednesday test at a NASA facility in Utah.
NASA said that two minutes was “the same amount of time it will fire when it lifts the [Space Launch System] off the launch pad.”
The booster is supposed to take the next-generation Orion spacecraft to an asteroid, Mars, and beyond in the future.
“The work being done around the country today to build SLS is laying a solid foundation for future exploration missions, and these missions will enable us to pioneer far into the solar system,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said in a statement. “The teams are doing tremendous work to develop what will be a national asset for human exploration and potential science missions.”
You can watch the booster’s test in the video below. The second test is currently scheduled for some time in 2016.
