How water is used to cool rocket exhaust

At a Nasa facility in Mississippi, hundreds of gallons of water are used to cool the exhaust when rocket engines are tested.

At Stennis Space Center, engineers are evaluating the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket built since the Saturn V in the 1960s.

The engines fire into a "flame bucket", into which water is directed to cool the super-heated steam. In addition, a water "curtain" is created around the engines to suppress the noise generated when they fire.

This is done to protect the hardware from vibrations while it is anchored to the stand.

The video shows a water flow test conducted on 4 May 2018.