Stennis Space Center

John C. Stennis Space Center prepares for the 21^st century on the heels of an ambitious and unprecedented year for the men and women in rocket propulsion testing, commercial remote sensing, and Earth system sciences.

All major test stands are now occupied with rocket engines for the Space Shuttle, the X-33 and X-34, larger, more powerful hybrid rocket motors, hydrogen peroxide engines, and other new rocket engines being tested for private industry. Expansion, improvements, and modifications to the test stands have been completed to accommodate increased testing activities.

For the first time in Stennis' history, the center is the site of an engine assembly facility. The Boeing Company, in an unprecedented government/industry partnership, opened the RS-68 Engine Assembly Facility in March 2000 that will produce the latest large, liquid-fueled engine developed at Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power, a division of Boeing. The new assembly facility is located at the former Mississippi Army Ammunition Plant at Stennis. The RS-68 is a 650,000-pound thrust engine that will power the Delta IV family of expendable launch vehicles.

The single-engine test phase for the XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike Engine, the engine that will power the X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator, was completed in May 2000. The linear aerospike engine set a new duration record of 290 seconds in an abbreviated test at Stennis.

Modifications to the test stand will be made to accommodate the next phase of testing on two aerospike engines in a flight configuration, as they will be mounted on the X-33 vehicle. The dual engine testing will begin in late summer 2000.

Stennis' E-3 test facility is running at full pace, with both of its testing cells occupied. The facility has tested new hybrid and hydrogen peroxide rocket technology propulsion systems, including a small-scale hybrid rocket motor positioned horizontally in cell one. Testing was also performed in cell two on a low-cost, upper-stage propulsion system that uses hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizer propellant.

The first test firing of the 250,000-pound thrust hybrid rocket motor, the largest hybrid rocket motor yet tested at Stennis, occurred in July 1999. Longer duration tests were also conducted on the motor, designed and constructed by a consortium of aerospace corporations.

The Hybrid Sounding Rocket (HYSR) passed its first ground test at Stennis in February 2000. The HYSR project was performed under a Space Act Agreement managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The HYSR, produced by Lockheed Martin Michoud Operations in New Orleans, is designed for suborbital space and atmospheric science missions and will also be used as a flyable testbed for small-scale experiments.

An ignition system test of the XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike Engine for the Lockheed Martin X-33 prototype vehicle was successfully conducted. The ignition system serves as a kind of "pilot light" to ignite the combustible propellant and oxidizer and literally "light" the engine.

NASA's Commercial Remote Sensing Program (CRSP) at Stennis is continuing to explore new ways of doing business to develop faster, better, and cheaper methods of acquiring data for scientific research and to make the results available to the public. The CSRP and its partners, have recently developed a new website devoted to sharing the practical uses of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, called the GPS Application Exchange. The GPS Application Exchange was developed at Stennis by NASA, members of the U.S. GPS Industry Council, and the RAND Corporation. The website can be found at http://gpshome.ssc.nasa.gov.

From aiding the visually impaired in France to improving the efficiency and safety of taxicab service in Australia, GPS has the ability to touch our everyday lives. Using survey systems that incorporate GPS measurements, researchers developed models of the riverbeds and the water discharged into the waterways. These models will be used to develop plans to alleviate damage caused by flooding in Bangladesh.

An agreement reached between Stennis and the Wolf River Conservation Society, Inc. has provided a new champion for conservation management in southern Mississippi. This partnership will investigate how emerging commercial space technologies can help preserve the Wolf River, Mississippi's first officially designated scenic river. It is the Society's responsibility to manage the easement, promote the river's scenic and recreational value, and collect baseline information on plants and animals within the easement.

Stennis will use the easement and the surrounding watershed as a testing site for new remote sensing technologies and products. The first such products to be tested over the Wolf River will be produced from images taken with IKONOS--the first commercial, high-resolution Earth observation satellite. Products will be created from IKONOS images that can address the conservation management needs of the Society. As NASA tests other products in a similar fashion against the Society's needs, the Wolf River could become one of the most often-imaged locations in the South.

The Earth System Science Office (ESSO) continued its study of the world's oceans in partnership with the Naval Oceanographic Office, also located at Stennis.

Scientists from the ESSO sailed from Pusan, South Korea, to Singapore to gather data from the South China Sea on phytoplankton--microscopic ocean plant life. The data will be used to calibrate and validate ocean color algorithms taken by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite. Subtle changes in ocean color indicate various types and quantities of marine phytoplankton, which has both scientific and practical applications. The SeaWiFS project will develop and operate a research data system that will process, calibrate, validate, archive, and distribute data received from an Earth-orbiting ocean color sensor.

ESSO research scientists also helped the U.S. Navy and the University of West Florida's (UWF) Archaeology Institute uncover prehistoric American Indian shell middens--dump sites--and historic sites.

Using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), a team composed of members of UWF's Archaeology Department and the U.S. Navy's Coastal System Station, was able to locate artifacts and map nine midden sites used as refuse heaps by Native American tribes in the Florida area between 900 and 1200 A.D.

With a full slate of engine testing, the development of new applications for remote sensing, and a flood of Earth science data pouring in, it is clear that all engines are go at Stennis.

Airborne Terrestrial Applications Sensor (ATLAS) imagery of the Wolf River was acquired at 4-meter resolution from the NASA Stennis Learjet on April 18, 1999.