NASA plans to retire the space shuttle program in 2010. But testing will start in 2011 on the J2-X rocket engines, which will be used on the space shuttle's replacements, the Ares I and V.
Workers at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in Bay St Louis, Mississippi have been busy erecting the A-3 Test Stand, a 300 foot-tall steel structure which NASA engineers will use to test their new J2-X rocket engines. Thus far, workers have completed seven of the structure's 16 steel stages.
These J2-X engines will power two new vehicles, the Ares I, a capsule that will take astronauts into space and the Ares V, a cargo launch machine....