Test firing of first stage motor for the Ares I rocket (Photo courtesy NASA)
NASA and ATK successfully test fired a five-segment solid-fuel booster in Utah on September 10, 2009, thursday. It was a full scale, 2 minutes test of the first stage motor of Ares-I rocket. The stationary ground test provided valuable measurements of thrust, roll, motor vibration and acoustics to the engineers for further development of the rocket.
NASA Ares rockets are planned to return humans to moon, and then ultimately to Mars and further beyond, known as the NASA Constellation Progarm. Ares-I are actually the crew launch vehicles for the Constellation Program. The first stage motor generates a thrust of 3.6 million pound at launch. Ares-I five-segment solid rocket booster is derived from the space shuttle’s solid rocket booster.
During the test the flame exited the nozzle at about Mach-3, for 123 seconds, at a temperature of 4500F, 2/3 the Sun’s temperature, hot enough to boil steel.
Next ground test is planned for summers 2010.
