The J-2X, NASA's new upper stage rocket engine!

This week we are at the Stennis Space Center documenting the 3rd test of the J-2X engine. It is NASA's new upper stage engine, designed to lift a space craft to orbit and also to be able to restart after shutdown while in orbit. It is based on the Apollo era J-2 engine that powered the Saturn V second and third stages. Some of the changes include the removal of beryllium, a redesign of all the electronics, and the use of 21st-century joining techniques.

Here is a short video that explains a little more about what the J-2X is and what lead up to us being here this week...

Today was the big day.  We came here with a regular high definition camera, a Panasonic DVC-ProHD camera with a wide angle lens and also with a new Red Mysterium-X. It's the first time we at Marshall Television have used it and I was a little nervous. It's more like a film camera than a video camera and it requires a bit more work to achieve a nicely exposed image. It's definitely not for a beginner!

After a couple hours of waiting and sweating we were awarded with the awesome engine test!

This was a 7 second test of this brand new engine.  After a few more longer tests, there will be a full duration, 500 second test!  That should be awesome!

I Love My Job!

Please click on the pictures to see the bigger versions.

Also, click on the links, they are added by me in case you want more info...


I shoot video for NASA...I love my job because everyday is different and I never know where I may end up.

I also love NASA history and being surrounded by all things NASA...old and new.

Here are a few pictures I have taken the last few days of either things I was shooting or interesting historical items just "sitting" around.

In this picture, we see a nitrogen truck filling up some tank with, yep you guessed it, nitrogen. I was there to shoot a test related to the Ares program. The "smoke" was really just a harmless byproduct of the liquid nitrogen and the humid air. At least I assumed it was harmless because the guys there didn't yell RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!



Here we see a demonstration of a process called Friction Stir Welding. It will be used to join metal pieces on the new Ares I and Ares V rockets. This set-up at Marshall is just for testing purposes. The real tanks will be welded using this process at the Michoud Assembly Facility (where they currently make the Shuttle External Tank).



These next 5 pictures are various historical engines I have run across lately...

This is what is left of an Aerospike engine that was going to used on the cancelled X-33 program. It was supposed to be a single-stage to orbit craft but the program was cancelled in 2001.



Below, we see 8 or 9 different versions of what I believe is the Fastrac engine that was going to be used to power the X-34. This program was also canceled in 2001.



Here we see an Apollo-era J-2 engine...there were actually 4 of them here. I was told they were brought out of storage to be put on display at various different places.



This is a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME)...not sure why it was outside, although it was behind a fence topped with barbed wire...



And last, but certainly not least, an Apollo-era F-1 engine...also pulled out of storage to be put on display somewhere...This is the most powerful single-nozzle liquid fueled rocket engine ever used by NASA (so far...) It produced over 1.5 millions pounds of thrust and 5 of them powered the mighty first stage of the Saturn V! This one appears to have been in storage in two pieces...