NASA, Northrop Conduct Static Fire Test for SLS Rocket Booster; Charlie Precourt Quoted

Northrop Grumman and NASA have completed a static fire test for the rocket motor element of the Space Launch System in Promontory, Utah, ahead of the agency’s subsequent Artemis deep-space missions.

The NASA-Northrop team tested the SLS heavy-lift vehicle’s flight support booster and saw the rocket component generate over 3.6M pounds of thrust within two minutes, Northrop said Wednesday.

The five-segment FSB-1 spans 154 feet and will operate as part of a twin-booster component designed to handle 75 percent of the SLS rocket’s initial thrust during launch.

In June, Northrop delivered the first batch of SLS booster segments for the Artemis I mission to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The company is completing the next set of motor segments for the Artemis II mission and manufacturing another batch for the third Artemis effort.

Charlie Precourt, vice president for propulsion systems at Northrop, said the company is committed to continuing the delivery and testing of flight hardware and solid propulsion technology to “fuel NASA’s missions to the moon and beyond.”

The recent assessment builds on Northrop and NASA’s series of FSB ground testing activities that began in the past decade.