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NASA Space

NASA Tests a Booster That Produces 3 Million Pounds of Thrust (arstechnica.com) 120

On Wednesday afternoon in Northern Utah, Northrop Grumman successfully fired up a full-scale test version of the boosters it is building for NASA's Space Launch System rocket. "Two of these large boosters, each with a mass of 1.6 million pounds, account for 75 percent of the SLS rocket's thrust during the first two minutes of flight," reports Ars Technica. "They are composed of five segments of a powderized, solid fuel that is ignited upon launch. Northrop has already built 26 of the 30 segments NASA needs for the first three launches of the SLS rocket." From the report: The primary reason for Wednesday's test was that Northrop's supplier of aluminum-based fuel could no longer deliver the product. Therefore, Northrop needed to ensure that a new vendor could provide the solid rocket fuel needed for future launches of the SLS rocket beyond the first three. NASA also used the test to assess some changes to the nozzle design, said Bruce Tiller, manager of the SLS boosters office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. With this test, Tiller said NASA remains on track to potentially launch the SLS rocket in late 2021. The boosters for this flight are already being stacked in Florida. The main question is whether the rocket's large core stage, which is set to undergo a critical test firing in Mississippi this fall, will be ready to go. These solid rocket boosters are a holdover from the space shuttle era, when they powered that vehicle. However, the new boosters have been modernized with improved avionics and made more powerful with the addition of a fifth segment.
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NASA Tests a Booster That Produces 3 Million Pounds of Thrust

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  • Whats that in Euros?

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @02:35AM (#60468354)

      Whats that in Euros?

      About 13 million newtons.

      • Thank you for the convertion to a sensible unit, but are you aware that the Newton was a nicname for a £1 note in the late 1970s [wikipedia.org]

        • Thank you for the convertion to a sensible unit, but are you aware that the Newton was a nicname for a £1 note in the late 1970s [wikipedia.org]

          And the Newton is simply an updated version of the Oldton ... :-)

    • What is the weight of the rocket? If it is 49 Million ounces, then it won't be going anywhere.
      • Let's stick with SI units. It would be only 0.725 gigagrams (Gg).

        • by Vihai ( 668734 )

          The gram is the unit of measurement for mass. Force is measured in newtons (N), it's an important distinction. Do you have such distinction in Liberia...ehm... USA?

          • by mark-t ( 151149 )

            Force can also be measured in pounds or kilograms, although is generally considered ambiguous to do so.

            To be clear, however, N pounds of force equals the force exerted by an N pound mass on a level surface at 1G of acceleration. This notation is convenient in many cases when communicating how much force something exerts because most people have a more intuitive idea of how heavy something would feel like measured in familiar units than those used by the scientific community.

            It would always be incorrec

          • No shit, Sherlock. Do you want a cookie or a medal for that observation?

            You shouldn't make wise cracks. Show me your scale that displays newtons.
            I have traveled to ~44 countries and never have seen a scale that displays newtons. Grams, kilograms, stones, pounds, kans, jin and many others I cannot recall---but not newtons. (Strain gauges, yes, but not scales in grocery stores, markets, etc.)

    • NASA needs all that thrusting power because the moon is a harsh mistress.
    • Whats that in Euros?

      Pretty much 3 million these days.

      • Closer to 3.3 million Euros, but that's Before taxes, of course. UK vat tax is 20%, so the payload capacity would be reduced significantly.

    • What's that in G? (from Earth)
    • They need to divide by thrust and their budget problem would be solved.

  • I thought everyone was into reusable rockets nowadays and now this dinoaur comes up with a big piece of fireworks.
    A bit dissapointing for the billion dollar they received for this project.

    • "reusable rockets" A solid booster is basically a tube filled with propellant and as for cost, 95% would be the propellant, so re-using the tube isn't a high priority. All the extra things required to re-use it, may make the economics even worse: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
  • by Dr.Who ( 146770 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @02:40AM (#60468356) Homepage
    Did they orient the joints between the segments with the opening pointing towards the nozzle end (down when the rocket is oriented for launch) so that any water that runs down the outside of the booster flows past the joint rather than into the joint?
    • by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @03:58AM (#60468444)

      The answer is "yes" but that's the way they were for the entire life of the Shuttle program too - that was not an issue in any way related to the Challenger incident. In the instance of Challenger, the O-rings in the joints were flexible over a certain temperature range and capable of sealing the joints against the hot exhaust gasses while flexible, but Challenger was launched well-below that temperature range, so the O-rings were stiff and could not flex as required to keep the joints sealed. The joint itself was designed in a way that was satisfactory for operations as designed, but wholly inadequate for operation with cold O-rings or very high altitude wind shear (which also contributed to Challenger's loss by causing the boosters to flex more due to the side stresses it encountered. Post-Challenger the joints were re-designed making them better able to resist the side forces, adding an O-ring, adding electric heaters to the joints to prevent them getting too cold on the pad, and NASA had to re-learn the idea of operating a system within its design limits. The re-designed joints were used for the rest of the program and are what is implemented on SLS (which is using-up the supply of existing recycled shuttle SRB casings before fabricating new ones).

      Sadly, they are making them disposable now for two basic reasons:

      1. The new boosters are longer (5 segments rather than the shuttle's 4 segments) which made them heavier and the existing parachute systems were incapable of lowering them gently to the sea. Recovery was tested on the flight of the Ares 1-X test vehicle and that did not go well - the expended booster bent when it hit the water. Newer parachutes and rigging able to deal with the increased mass and higher terminal velocity were going to add an unacceptable and unanticipated mass, lowering performance of the overall rocket.

      2. The costs of operating the ships to recover the boosters and the facilities to inspect, refurbish, and refill them (including extra transportation and employee costs) was too high for a system that will not be flown very often. If you fly once per year but have to have all those people on staff full-time for the whole year it's a major cost, whereas if you fly every week that cost would be divided over all those missions. The Obama administration contracted with the rocket builders to setup production lines that could make no more than two rockets per year with an anticipated flight rate of one per year - at those rates there was little value in booster recovery.

      • 2. The costs of operating the ships to recover the boosters and the facilities to inspect, refurbish, and refill them (including extra transportation and employee costs) was too high for a system that will not be flown very often.

        What's the over/under that it will fly twice?

        I'm generally not a betting man, but I'd bet it doesn't fly more than once.

        • I'm not sure it will even fly once. Other players are far enough along to already make the SLS seem like a huge waste of time and money. And it's not like those other players are slowing down in their development at the moment.

    • No, as usual, no one with any expertise was involved, this time it was the janitors of the local Walmart that got to take their best shot.

      All because the real experts prefer to hang out on Slashdot. Commenting whilst the world goes to shit.

  • Videos (Score:2, Informative)

    Just the motor test from T-15sec. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    NASA TV coverage with narration of test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • its easier to comprehend it in tons - 1500. In other words just one of these boosters could launch a small ferry into orbit. This is where the word awesome really does apply.

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      its easier to comprehend it in tons - 1500.

      Using sea-level weight to measure a space-going rocket is a bit silly. The proper unit of thrust is force, i.e. Newtons, not mass.

      Fortunately it is easy to convert. One tonne is 10kN (or 9.81 if you are fussy)

      In other words just one of these boosters could launch a small ferry into orbit.

      It is a booster. It launches nothing to orbit. The complete SLS will have a 100t payload.
      You mean it would be able to lift a small ferry off the ground?
      But don't forget that the booster itself weighs more than half the thrust at launch, so the ferry had better be under 700t displacement, or it wil

    • by ChrisMaple ( 607946 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @12:03PM (#60469724)

      ... launch a small ferry into orbit....

      The LGBTQ community would like a word with you.

  • I'm not a rocket scientist, but given the small number of launches planned for the SLS I would expect that the costs of building half a dozen reusable boosters exceeds the cost of building a dozen much simpler disposable SRBs.

    To put it in Slashdot terms, when do you decide that it's worth building a reusable module rather than a simple function. It's all down to use count. For me the magic number is five. If I'm only using a piece code in fewer than five places I should keep the overheads to a minimum,.Mor

    • The main thing about SRBs is that there's quite little to reuse. Cheap hard shell, some minimal avionics, a rather simple nozzle. They are very simple devices and simultaneously quite heavy even when empty, so landing them to recover the little they have to them after the launch isn't very economical.

  • As both will very likely not get off the ground anytime soon, despite all the federal pork-barrel money flowing into them.
  • that Northrop's supplier of aluminum-based fuel could no longer deliver the product.

    Now we know why aluminum foil is so expensive. Pushing $4 for 75 square feet (name brand). All that aluminum is being used for rocket fuel.

    • There are lots of old and Covid idled aircraft and new Boeing 737 Maxes, that can be ground up for aluminium fuel...
    • And that little bit of foam for kneeling on in gardening you bought at Home Depot costs more money than an 8' x 11' four inch thick foam pad from industrial supply that gardening companies buy and cut up for their employees.

      What's your point?

  • by taylorius ( 221419 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @05:46AM (#60468572) Homepage

    I hear it's using a revolutionary Pork / Hot air combustion system, for unparalleled performance.

    • by ytene ( 4376651 )
      Yeah, it burns through cash faster than any other mechanism known to science.
      • Yeah, it burns through cash faster than any other mechanism known to science.

        Uh, you are unaware of the Department of Defense.

        Defense budget 2020 is $738 billion. NASA is barely noticeable when viewed with DoD in the background.

        One single procurement, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is expected to end up costing more than the entire budget spend by NASA since it was formed.

  • "Two of these large boosters, each with a mass of 1.6 million pounds..."

    Damn, now THAT is a massive rocket. Sure as hell hope it has enough thrust to get her fat ass off the ground...

  • I completely understand that the vast majority of orbital launches are not *remotely* friendly to the environment... but I wonder if anyone has done an impact assessment of using an SRB based on Aluminum powder and compared that with, say, SpaceX's approach of using Methylox for Starship?

    I wonder what relative environmental impact the alternative fuels will have? Obviously, the environmental impact of aluminum isn't just related to the impact of mining it from bauxite and refining it, or maybe even obtai
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      I completely understand that the vast majority of orbital launches are not *remotely* friendly to the environment... but I wonder if anyone has done an impact assessment of using an SRB based on Aluminum powder and compared that with, say, SpaceX's approach of using Methylox for Starship?

      Yeah, back in the shuttle days, that was calculated.

      Answer is, it's not enough to notice until you go to a rate of many flights per day. If you're worried that the aluminum eventually becomes dust, it's just hard to compete with the 770 billion kilograms of dust lofted into the atmosphere by the winds in the Sahara alone.

      https://www.nasa.gov/topics/ea... [nasa.gov]

      • Yeah, but the SRBs don't release "dust", they release hydrochloric acid. This paper [aiaa.org] says 480,000 pounds of it per STS launch, so +25% for each SLS launch.

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
          They release a number of chemical combustion products, of which the HCl was the one considered to be the most worth analyzing for environmental impact (which was determined to be trivial).

          but HCl was not what was asked about, it was the Al2O3 that was the question.

        • Just be happy that the very powerful fuel combination of hydrogen and fluorine isn't being used.
    • by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

      Everyday Astronaut outlines rocket pollution, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] however, the real pollutants come from building the rockets.

      I remember reading in 1980s where they provided car covers so sprinkling dust from SRB smoke will not cause spots on the car paint.

  • They misspelled Senate Launch System [competitivespace.org] ...

  • by jlv ( 5619 ) on Thursday September 03, 2020 @10:19AM (#60469312)

    This article should be titled: "Look at big aerospace companies using billions of dollars do the same thing again"

    Hopefully SLS never flies (and saves us a few US$1B or so) and they just let birds nest in the engines like they did to the Saturn V booster for Apollo 18.

    Meanwhile, there is real cool space news happening.
    Blue Origin's last New Shepard launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    SpaceX's launch (and booster landing) just this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    and the upcoming hop of SpaceX Starship SN6 that might happen today also.

  • For comparison, a Saturn V first stage is 287,000 lbm empty, 5,040,000 lbm fueled, and produces 7,891,000 lbf thrust.
  • Ho hum. The Saturn V, developed under the guidance of, er, "patriot" Wernher von Braun, produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust in the 1960s. Not sure how many Marks that was.

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