Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Orbital ATK test fires SLS booster

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: March 12, 2015 at 9:47:40 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Orbital ATK test fires SLS booster

March 11, 2015
RELEASE 15-040

NASA's Space Launch System Booster Passes Major Ground Test
The largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built successfully fired up Wednesday for a major-milestone ground test in preparation for future missions to help propel NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft to deep space destinations, including an asteroid and Mars.
The booster fired for two minutes, the same amount of time it will fire when it lifts the SLS off the launch pad, and produced about 3.6 million pounds of thrust. The test was conducted at the Promontory, Utah test facility of commercial partner Orbital ATK, and is one of two tests planned to qualify the booster for flight. Once qualified, the flight booster hardware will be ready for shipment to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first SLS flight.
"The work being done around the country today to build SLS is laying a solid foundation for future exploration missions, and these missions will enable us to pioneer far into the solar system," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "The teams are doing tremendous work to develop what will be a national asset for human exploration and potential science missions."
It took months to heat the 1.6 million pound booster to 90 degrees Fahrenheit to verify its performance at the highest end of the booster's accepted propellant temperature range. A cold-temperature test, at a target of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the low end of the propellant temperature range, is planned for early 2016. These two tests will provide a full range of data for analytical models that inform how the booster performs. During the test, temperatures inside the booster reached more than 5,600 degrees.
"This test is a significant milestone for SLS and follows years of development," said Todd May, SLS program manager. "Our partnership with Orbital ATK and more than 500 suppliers across the country is keeping us on the path to building the most powerful rocket in the world."
During the test, more than 531 instrumentation channels on the booster were measured to help assess some 102 design objectives. The test also demonstrated the booster meets applicable ballistic performance requirements, such as thrust and pressure. Other objectives included data gathering on vital motor upgrades, such as the new internal motor insulation and liner and an improved nozzle design.
When completed, two five-segment boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power the SLS on deep space missions. The 177-feet-long solid rocket boosters operate in parallel with the main engines for the first two minutes of flight. They provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed for the rocket to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth.
The first flight test of SLS will be configured for a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system. The SLS will later be configured to provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons) to enable missions farther into our solar system.
For more information on SLS, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/sls
-end-
Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Kim Henry
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
kimberly.h.henry@nasa.gov

Orbital ATK test fires SLS booster
03/11/2015 12:44 PM
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

Locked down in a massive test stand, an upgraded five-segment solid-fuel booster thundered to life in Utah Wednesday in a spectacular test firing, generating 3.6 million pounds of thrust during a two-minute "burn" that generated a 5,000-degree torrent of flame and a towering plume of exhaust visible for miles around.

The shuttle-heritage booster, intended to help push NASA's planned Space Launch System super rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere, ignited with jarring rush of fire at 11:30 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), shattering the early morning calm at Orbital ATK's Promontory, Utah, manufacturing facility.
A 177-foot-long five-segment solid-fuel booster was ignited for a two-minute test firing in Utah Wednesday to help qualify the rocket for use with NASA's planned Space Launch System -- SLS -- heavy-lift rocket. (Credit: NASA TV)

Cheered on by Orbital ATK employees and NASA officials watching from a viewing area a safe distance away, the 177-foot-long 1.6-million-pound booster fired for a bit longer than two minutes as planned before exhausting its load of solid propellant. As the propellant burned away inside the rocket, television cameras showed nearby vegetation and rocks steaming in the radiated heat as a towering column of exhaust climbed into the sky.

As the last of the propellant was consumed, a swing arm rotated into the smoking nozzle, injecting 31 tons of carbon dioxide into the body of the booster to quench any lingering flame and "to preserve the state it was in during the test," said a NASA spokeswoman. "This allows the team to get the best data on how it will perform during flight."

In addition, nozzles facing the lower side of the booster began spraying 2,300 gallons of water per minute on the rocket's casing to lower temperatures from around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to just 300 degrees, preventing any heat-related damage to the structure.

Space shuttles relied on two four-segment boosters to get of the launch pad while the huge SLS rocket will use two upgraded five-segment SRBs, each one generating 3.6 million pounds of thrust. The SLS first stage also will use four leftover space shuttle main engines burning liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants.

The test firing Wednesday marked the fourth ground test of the new five-segment booster and the first qualification motor, or QM, firing, testing the rocket's hydraulic steering system, fuel mixture, insulation performance and a redesigned nozzle. Some 531 channels of telemetry were recorded from hundreds of sensors.

The booster was heated to 90 degrees before ignition to simulate launch in warm weather. A second test firing in 2016 will test the motor under cold-weather conditions. Todd May, NASA's SLS program manager, said the QM-1 test firing was a "really big deal for us."
Another view of the SLS booster test firing at Orbital ATK's facility in Promontory, Utah. (Credit: NASA TV)

"These motors have 25 percent more energy than the motors we used to get the shuttle off the ground," he said. "QM-1 is the first of two tests that will used to qualify the motors for flight. We're actually already building the pieces of the second qualification motor. This is a really exciting time for all of us."

Engineers will tear the QM-1 booster apart to inspect its internal components and carry out an exhaustive review of data collected during the test firing to make sure the booster performed as expected.

In the meantime, "it looked really clean, we're very excited," said Charles Precourt, a former space shuttle commander who now serves as Orbital ATK's vice president and general manager for propulsion systems.

"It's a great result," he said. "You could feel the pressure coming off the motor, you could see the plume and watch the (nozzle steering system) vectoring. It all looked great. We'll be looking for the quick-look data, but a really nice result."

=================================

CAPTION 1: A 177-foot-long five-segment solid-fuel booster was ignited for a two-minute test firing in Utah Wednesday to help qualify the rocket for use with NASA's planned Space Launch System -- SLS -- heavy-lift rocket. (Credit: NASA TV)

CAPTION 2: Another view of the SLS booster test firing at Orbital ATK's facility in Promontory, Utah. (Credit: NASA TV)

© 2015 William Harwood/CBS News

Powerful solid rocket motor fired in Utah
Posted on March 11, 2015 by Stephen Clark
A five-segment solid rocket booster fires in Utah on Wednesday. Credit: Orbital ATK
A solid-fueled rocket booster fired for more than two minutes in Utah on Wednesday, spewing a torrent of glowing hot flame against a hillside in a key test for the Space Launch System, a behemoth rocket NASA is developing to send astronauts on long-distance voyages into space.
Restrained in a test housing, the 177-foot-long rocket motor ignited at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT) with a blast of fiery exhaust that sent a towering column of smoke and dust hundreds of feet into the sky.
Made by Orbital ATK, a company recently formed by the merger of Orbital Sciences and ATK, the rocket motor produced 3.6 million pounds of thrust and consumed 5.5 tons of powdered aluminum fuel, oxidizer and binding agents per second.
The firing was the first of two tests to qualify the the booster to fly on the Space Launch System, which is scheduled for its first test flight without astronauts in 2018. A crewed mission will blast off in 2021 and fly around the moon, and future missions are planned to dispatch astronauts to an asteroid and Mars.
A large fire extinguisher injected 31 tons of carbon dioxide into the booster's nozzle after the rocket exhausted its pre-packed propellant supply, and the firing appeared to go according to plan.
"It looked really clean, we're very excited," said Charlie Precourt, Orbital ATK's vice president and general manager for propulsion systems. "It's a great result. You could feel the pressure coming off the motor, you could see the plume and watch the nozzle vectoring. It all looked great."
Next will come an intensive data review to evaluate the rocket's performance.
Engineers will examine data recored by more than 500 channels of instrumentation to check the booster's performance against more than 100 test objectives.
"This test is a significant milestone for SLS and follows years of development," said Todd May, NASA's SLS program manager. "Our partnership with Orbital ATK and more than 500 suppliers across the country is keeping us on the path to building the most powerful rocket in the world."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ts9sFtUSeQE
The Qualification Motor-1, or QM-1, test Wednesday will be followed by a similar firing in early 2016. The qualification tests build on a series of three developmental firings conducted by Orbital ATK to check changes to the booster's design.
The booster's propellant mixture was warmed to 90 degrees Fahrenheit for Wednesday's test, and next year's firing will burn fuel at colder temperatures to bracket the extremes of the rocket's planned operating conditions.
Two 12-foot-diameter solid rocket boosters will fly on each SLS mission, producing more than 75 percent of the rocket's total thrust in the first two minutes of launch. Four hydrogen-fueled RS-25 engines — upgraded units that flew on space shuttle missions — will power the 27.6-foot-wide SLS core stage.
The five-segment SLS boosters are extended versions of the rocket motors that launched space shuttle missions.
"The biggest change is we added a segment, which is 25 percent more propellant for way more performance," said Precourt, a former space shuttle commander. "The typical shuttle booster would give you about 3 million pounds (of thrust), and this is a little over 3.5 million pounds of thrust, so it's the kind of performance to get our exploration journey to Mars off the ground."
Designers also removed asbestos from the booster's insulation to comply with environmental regulations, adjusted the attach fittings where the motor will connect to the SLS core stage, and removed the rocket's parachutes used for recovery after space shuttle launches, according to May.
"We've got new avionics in it from what used to be on shuttle," Precourt said. "They are far more capable than what we had in that program … We also changed what's known as the insulator, the material that sits between the wall of the motor casing and the propellant. The propellant's burning at about 5,000 degrees (Fahrenheit), and you have to have an insulator in there. It's a special material from a rubber base that ablates and protects the system of the case from being compromised by the heat."
Brian Duffy, a former astronaut and Orbital ATK's vice president for exploration systems, said components for the boosters to fly on the first SLS mission will be prepared for launch beginning this year.
"This year is when the action starts for us," Duffy said.
Structural parts left over from the space shuttle program — nose cones, aft and forward skirts and frustums — are in storage at the Kennedy Space Center. Duffy said Orbital ATK technicians will soon start working on the components.
"We already have them there, and we have them in a preserved state where once we get the go, which will be very soon, we'll start taking them out of their preserved state, clean them up and get them ready for flight," Duffy said.

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

Most Powerful Solid Rocket Booster Ignites in Milestone Test, Propelling NASA on Path to Deep Space
by Ken Kremer on March 11, 2015
At the Orbital ATK test facility, the booster for NASA's Space Launch System rocket was fired for a two minute test on March 11. The test is one of two that will qualify the booster for flight before SLS begins carrying NASA's Orion spacecraft and other potential payloads to deep space destinations. Image Credit: NASA
Watch the complete test firing video below
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA's goal of sending humans back to deep space in the next decade advanced a major step forward today, March 11, with the successful ground test firing of the largest and most powerful solid rocket booster ever built that will be used to propel NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and manned Orion spacecraft to destinations including the Moon, Asteroids and Mars.
The two minute long, full duration static test firing of the motor marked a major milestone in the ongoing development of NASA's SLS booster, which is the most powerful rocket ever built in human history.
The booster known as qualification motor, QM-1, is the world's largest solid rocket motor and was ignited at about 11:30 a.m. EST by prime contractor Orbital ATK at the newly merged firms test facility in Promontory, Utah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ts9sFtUSeQE
Video caption: Space Launch System Booster Passes Major Ground Test on Mar. 11, 2015. The 5 segment solid rocket booster being developed for the SLS rocket fired for two minutes, the same amount of time it will fire when it lifts the SLS off the launch pad, and produced about 3.6 million pounds of thrust. The test was conducted at the Promontory, Utah test facility of commercial partner Orbital ATK. Credit: NASA
It burned for exactly the same amount of time as it will during flights of the SLS booster which will lift off from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The booster test firing was the second of two major do or die tests conducted by NASA in the past three months in support of the agency's "Journey to Mars" strategy to develop the infrastructure required to send astronauts to an asteroid in the next decade and beyond to the Red Planet in the 2030s.
"The work being done around the country today to build SLS is laying a solid foundation for future exploration missions, and these missions will enable us to pioneer far into the solar system," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, in a statement.
"The teams are doing tremendous work to develop what will be a national asset for human exploration and potential science missions."
Orbital ATK's five segment rocket motor is assembled in its Promontory, Utah, test stand
where it is being conditioned for the March 11 ground test. Credit: Orbital ATK
The 5-segment booster produces 3.6 million lbs of maximum thrust which equates to more than 14 Boeing 747-400s at full takeoff power!
The new 5-segment booster was derived from the 4-segment booster used during NASA's three decade long Space Shuttle program. One segment has been added and therefore the new, longer and more powerful booster must be requalified to launch the SLS and humans.
A second test is planned a year from now and will qualify the boosters for use with the SLS.
"This test is a significant milestone for SLS and follows years of development," said Todd May, SLS program manager.
"Our partnership with Orbital ATK and more than 500 suppliers across the country is keeping us on the path to building the most powerful rocket in the world."
Solid rocket boosters separate from SLS core stage in this artists concept. Credit: NASA
The QM-1 booster weighs in at 1.6 million pounds and required several month of conditioning to heat to the 90 degrees temperature required to conduct the static fire test and thereby qualify the booster design for high temperature launch conditions. It was mounted horizontally in the test stand and measured 154 feet in length and 12 feet in diameter and weighs 801 tons.
Temperatures inside the booster exceeded over 5,600 degrees F.
The static fire test was exquisitely planned to collect data on 103 design objectives as measured through more than 534 instrumentation channels on the booster as it was firing.
The second booster test in March 2016 will be conducted to qualify the propellant temperature range at the lower end of the launch conditions at 40 degrees F.
The first stage of the SLS will be powered by a pair of the five-segment boosters and four RS-25 engines that will generate a combined 8.4 million pounds of liftoff thrust.
The maiden test flight of the SLS is targeted for no later than November 2018 and will be configured in its initial 70-metric-ton (77-ton) version with a liftoff thrust of 8.4 million pounds. It will boost an unmanned Orion on an approximately three week long test flight beyond the Moon and back.
NASA plans to gradually upgrade the SLS to achieve an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons), enabling the more distant missions even farther into our solar system.
The first SLS test flight with the uncrewed Orion is called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) and will launch from Launch Complex 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA's first Orion spacecraft blasts off at 7:05 a.m. atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy Booster at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 5, 2014. Launch pad remote camera view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orion's inaugural mission dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT) was successfully launched on a flawless flight on Dec. 5, 2014 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Orion's inaugural mission dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT) was successfully launched on a flawless flight on Dec. 5, 2014 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Wide view of the new welding tool at the Vertical Assembly Center at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

Huge NASA SLS Booster Put To Fire In Promontory, UT | Video
2015, March, 11 08:44
NASA's Space Launch System rocket booster's solid propellant was ground-tested on its side at ATK, the rocket builder's factory.
http://www.space.com/28794-huge-nasa-sls-booster-put-to-fire-in-promontory-ut-video.html

Photos: NASA's Space Launch System Rocket Booster Test in Pictures
2015, March, 11 08:00
NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System, represents the most powerful rocket ever built. The rocket's booster fired in a test on March 11, 2015, in Utah.
http://www.space.com/28780-nasa-giant-rocket-booster-test-photos-sls.html

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