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BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi -- A 500-second test of the J-2X rocket engine, which will power the upper stage of the Space Launch System, was declared a success at Stennis Space Center Wednesday afternoon.

BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi -- A 500-second test of the J-2X rocket engine, which will power the upper stage of the Space Launch System, was declared a success at Stennis Space Center Wednesday afternoon.

"It is extremely significant," said Ronald Ramos, vice president of Exploration and Missile Defense Systems for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, of the test.

"It is only the eighth test of the first engine of a brand new development program," Ramos said. "It says a lot about the quality of the joint Pratt &Whitney Rocketdyne, NASA team that worked so hard to develop and design this engine, assemble the first one correctly and get it into test. Now we are testing for the longest duration that it is going to fire."

The J-2X is assembled at a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne facility at Stennis Space Center.

The Space Launch System will carry NASA's Orion spacecraft, cargo, equipment and science experiments into deep space missions.