Brenda Marie Rivers
Northrop Grumman has conducted static fire testing for the OmegA launch vehicle’s first stage at the company’s location in Promontory, Utah, ahead of the rocket’s launching slated for 2021.
Northrop said Thursday the full-scale test evaluated the first stage motor’s capabilities and saw the component produce over 2M pounds of thrust power for around 122 seconds, almost equivalent to the capacity of eight-and-a-half jumbo jets.
OmegA was designed to launch satellites for the public and private sector’s scientific and communication purposes. The U.S. Air Force previously tasked Northrop to conduct development and verification work for OmegA and its launch sites as part of a $792M contract awarded in October.
The testing effort comes as part of Northrop’s vehicle development program that supports thousands of supply chain jobs and spans the states of Arizona, Louisiana, Mississisppi and Utah.
“We committed to test the first stage of OmegA in spring 2019, and that’s exactly what we’ve done,†said Scott Lehr, vice president and general manager of Northrop’s flight systems division.
Northrop plans to conduct another static fire test for the rocket’s second stage this fall and aims to achieve an operational capability for transporting payloads for national security missions by 2022.
