(Pearlington, Miss.) Rolls-Royce today announced the company is donating a Trent 1000 test engine to the INFINITY Science Center, located near NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi. The purpose of this donation is to excite visitors to the Center in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) careers by showing them the marvels of modern aviation engines.

In 2007, Rolls-Royce officially opened its outdoor jet engine testing facility at the Stennis Space Center. Today, the company announced expansion is nearly complete of a second test stand, resulting in a total investment of nearly $100 million when the second test stand is fully operational.

“We hope that visitors, young and old, will be inspired by the wonders of aviation, engineering and what it takes to build the cleanest, quietest, lightest and most efficient jet engines used in modern aviation today.” said Anthony Woodard, General Manager, Rolls-Royce Outdoor Jet Engine Testing Facility.

Opened last year, the INFINITY Science Center’s goal is to inspire young minds to be a part of the nationally-critical research and technology being developed along the Southern Louisiana, Mississippi and the Alabama Gulf Coast.

John Wilson, INFINITY’s Executive Director said of the Center’s new exhibit: “Imagine standing almost inside a nine foot, state-of-the-art aircraft engine. Unless you’re an aerospace engineer or an aircraft mechanic, that’s something you just can’t do anywhere else.”

This particular engine was used in the development of the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 program. The Trent 1000 engine is designed to power all members of the Boeing 787 family (-8, -9 & -10) and will be certified up to 76,000 lbs of thrust with the capability of delivering 78,000 lbs. The first flight test of the Boeing 787-9, powered by the Trent 1000, took place on September 17 in Seattle, Wash.

This particular test program engine is known as “Engine – ESN 10017.” Built in Derby, UK, after a series of preliminary tests, it was transported 4,500 miles to the Rolls-Royce Jet Outdoor Test Stand here, where it underwent analyses for flutter, crosswind and noise testing. It later returned to the UK for more tests before successfully providing the company the test data needed to be certified. It amassed over 467 hours and 988 cycles. Now retired, the engine is on display at the INFINITY Science Center.

Additional Facts about the Trent 1000 program:

• The Trent 1000 hollow titanium fan is more than 9 feet across and sucks in more than a ton of air every second at take-off – that’s a racquetball court’s worth of air per second.
• The blades are engineered to deal with immense forces – equivalent to the weight of a freight train at take-off.
• The blade tip travels at more than 900mph – faster than the speed of sound.
• Each high pressure turbine blade produces more than 800 horsepower – the same as a NASCAR engine.
• The temperature inside the hottest parts of the engine reaches a level approaching half as hot as the surface of the sun.
• Despite all this power, a Trent 1000 on take-off is at least 3dB quieter than the previous generation aircraft.