NASA/Bill Ingalls
On Tuesday, NASA and its contractor, Orbital ATK, conducted the second and final qualification motor test for the Space Launch System’s booster.
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Say what you will about the Space Launch System. It's expensive, costing so much that NASA can't really afford to build payloads to fly on it. The Senate specified the rocket to fly with components derived from the Space Shuttle expressly to preserve jobs that otherwise would have been lost following the shuttle's retirement. And the entirely expendable launcher uses 1970s technology while private companies are focusing on smaller, modern, and reusable rockets.
All of that, more or less, is true. But it is also undeniable that the Space Launch System, whenever it does fly, will be one hell of a firecracker. On Tuesday, the space agency offered a taste of that when it demonstrated the firing of one of the solid rocket boosters that will help blast the SLS rocket off of the launch pad.
These boosters will provide about 75 percent of the thrust needed to lift the rocket and its payload into low-Earth orbit. As implied by their name, the boosters burn a solid composite made largely of aluminum. During Tuesday's test, a single booster produced about 3.2 million pounds of thrust. By way of comparison, a Falcon 9 rocket with its nine engines produces about 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
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