Nasa and ATK Aerospace Systems have successfully completed a full-scale test of a five-segment solid rocket motor.
The first-stage development solid rocket motor, the DM-2, is the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight.
The stationary rocket firing is the most heavily instrumented solid rocket motor test in Nasa history, with over 760 instruments measuring 53 test objectives.
Before the two-minute test, the solid rocket motor was cooled to 40°F to verify the performance of new materials and assess motor performance at low temperatures.
Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center first stage manager for Ares projects, Alex Priskos, said that ground testing at temperature extremes pushes the system to its limits, which advances their understanding of five-segment solid rocket motor performance.
The first-stage solid rocket motor is designed to generate up to 3.6 million pounds of thrust at launch.
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By GlobalDataInformation from this test along with data from the first development motor test in 2009, will be evaluated to better understand the performance and reliability of the design.