The largest, most powerful solid rocket boosters ever built will give the “lift” necessary to send astronauts to an asteroid and to Mars on NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). See the process of how a booster is made and tested at SLS booster prime contractor Orbital ATK’s facilities.
An Orbital ATK technician installs one of more than 900 plies of insulation onto the inner diameter of an SLS booster segment case.
Read: School is in Session: Welcome to Boosters 101
The insulation serves to protect the case metal from the heat of propellant combustion during test fire or launch. Image Credit: Orbital ATK.
Technicians remove a rounding fixture from the solid rocket motor center segment. The fixture is used to round the segment to prepare it for a solid handling install. The handling ring is the silver ring on the end of the segment. Image Credit: Orbital ATK
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense
