Engineers in Palm Beach County design and build RL10 engine for NASA’s Artemis II launch – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. (WSVN) — NASA is set to launch Artemis II, sending four astronauts into orbit around the moon, and they sourced the engine in South Florida.

To get them off Earth and onto their target path takes precision and power. That’s where L3Harris Technologies in Palm Beach County comes in.

Engineers there designed and built the RL10 engine.

“It’s powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen; a liquid hydrogen enters the fuel pump right here and then up into the injector and through the nozzle and provides 25,000 pounds of thrust,” said RL10 NASA Programs Chief Engineer Reed Kakuska. “It’s the most dependable, most reliable, highest performance upper stage engine in the world.”

It’s already been put to the test, as it successfully propeled Artemis I around the moon.

The engine fires in space as part of a separation sequence that will boost the manned spacecraft, the Orion, toward the moon.

“If the engine doesn’t fire, the astronauts are still safe, they can return to earth,” said Kakuska. “The Orion and its service module has an engine that can get them back.”

The four astronauts set to fly the mission visited the facility in Palm Beach County.

While the moon is the destination for now, the mission is stepping stone for what’s to come.

“Everything we’re practicing could eventually be used to go to Mars,” said Kakuska. “We think there is water in permanently shadowed craters on the south pole of the moon.”

That water could one day be turned into fuel and help power missions to the red planet.

The upcoming launch represents both the future and the past, a nod to the glory days of the Apollo Program.

“But every once in a while, you do sort of pinch yourself and go, ‘Holy cow, I get to work on the actual rockets that are returning people to the moon,’” said Kakuska.

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