For Release: March 7, 1995

Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Alabama
(Phone: 205-544-6535)

Note To Editors: N95-018

ENGINE TEST SCHEDULED AT MARSHALL CENTER WEDNESDAY

NASA engineers are scheduled to test fire an instrumented modified Space Shuttle Main Engine for 190 seconds, at approximately 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, in the Advanced Engine Test Facility at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The test is one of several focusing primarily on technology evaluation, also providing important information for Space Shuttle main engine development. Some of the new technologies to be demonstrated and evaluated include a design change in the alternate high pressure fuel turbopump; accelerometers which are designed to detect their own calibration changes and then automatically recalibrate themselves; silicon-nitride bearings in the low pressure oxidizer turbopump; and an improved laser liquid-level sensing system for measuring liquid hydrogen levels in the fuel tank.

The engine will be operated at between 80 and 109 percent power levels during the run. The test will be the fifty-sixth test firing of a modified Space Shuttle engine in the former Saturn V engine test facility.