With the National Space Symposium going on this week in Colorado Springs, we wanted to highlight a current NASA project that engineers used Creo Parametric to design.
It’s been more than four decades since NASA commissioned a human-rated rocket engine. The last rocket engine (J2, Apollo) put Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969 (› Play Audio). Now NASA has created the J2X engine.
If NASA could go to the moon over 40 years ago, where in the universe can NASA take a human being now?
Maybe Mars. When NASA began work on the J-2X engine in 2010, it was designed by Pratt & Whitney (using Creo Parametric) and developed along with 362 different suppliers and vendors in 35 states and five countries.
Just two years later, the engine is now built and well into its testing phase. The first unmanned flight is set for 2014.
J-2X will be the first human-rated NASA rocket engine since 1975 and will go farther than any engine that has carried human yet. At 15 feet, the J-2X is four-feet taller than its predecessor (Apollo) and weighs in at 5,450 pounds. In the photos, check out not only the engineering invested but the assembly required building this intricate machine.
Walt Janowski, J-2X program manager, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, says, “we are confident the J-2X will be ready to power humans to destinations in space never before visited, including asteroids and Mars. We look forward to working with NASA on the future of human spaceflight.”
Want to learn more about the J-2X or teach your kids a few things about rockets? The J-2X blog us not only informative, but the author, Bill Greene, makes rocket science easy to understand and fun to read about.
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