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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster | 8/9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Solid_Rocket_Booster | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:22:36.055022+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) Project (1988–1993) === In 1988–1989, NASA was planning on replacing the post-Challenger SRBs with a new Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) to be built by Aerojet at a new facility, designed by subcontractor, RUST International, on the location of a cancelled Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plant, at Yellow Creek, Mississippi (Yellow Creek Nuclear Plant). The ASRM would be slightly wider (the booster's diameter would be increased from 146 inches to 150 inches) and have 200,000 pounds of extra propellant, and have produced additional thrust in order to increase shuttle payload by about 12,000 lb, so that it could carry modules and construction components to the ISS. They were expected to be safer than the post-Challenger SRBs. The initial $1.2 Bn contract was to be for 12 motors, with an option for another 88 at maybe another $1 bn. Morton Thiokol would build the nozzles. The first test flight was expected around 1994. The ASRM program was cancelled in 1993 after robotic assembly systems and computers were on-site and approximately 2 billion dollars spent, in favor of continued use of the SRB after design flaw corrections.
=== Filament-wound cases === In order to provide the necessary performance to launch polar-orbiting shuttles from the SLC-6 launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, SRBs using filament-wound cases (FWC) were designed to be more lightweight than the steel cases used on Kennedy Space Center-launched SRBs. Unlike the regular SRBs, which had the flawed field joint design that led to the Challenger Disaster in 1986, the FWC boosters had the "double tang" joint design (necessary to keep the boosters properly in alignment during the "twang" movement when the SSMEs are ignited prior to liftoff), but used the two O-ring seals. With the closure of SLC-6, the FWC boosters were scrapped by ATK and NASA, but their field joints, albeit modified to incorporate the current three O-ring seals and joint heaters, were later (after STS-51L) incorporated into the field joints on the SRBs used until the last flight in 2011.
=== Five-segment booster === Prior to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, NASA investigated the replacement of the current 4-segment SRBs with either a 5-segment SRB design or replacing them altogether with liquid-fueled "flyback" boosters using either Atlas V or Delta IV EELV technologies. The 5-segment SRB, which would have required little change to the current shuttle infrastructure, would have allowed the space shuttle to carry an additional 20,000 lb (9,100 kg) of payload in an International Space Station-inclination orbit, eliminate the dangerous Return-to-Launch Site (RTLS) and Trans-Oceanic Abort (TAL) modes, and, by using a so-called dog-leg maneuver, fly south-to-north polar orbiting flights from Kennedy Space Center. The five-segment SRB would use a wider nozzle throat to keep within the pressure limit of the existing segment casings. After the destruction of Columbia, NASA shelved the five-segment SRB for the Shuttle Program, for safety reasons. One five-segment engineering test motor, ETM-03, was fired on October 23, 2003. As part of the Constellation Program, the first stage of the Ares I rocket was planned to use five-segment SRBs; in September 2009 a five-segment Space Shuttle SRB (DM-1) was static fired on the ground in ATK's desert testing area in Utah. Additional tests (DM-2 and DM-3) were carried out in Aug 2010 and Sept 2011. After the Constellation Program was cancelled in 2011, the new Space Launch System (SLS) was designated to use five-segment boosters. The first test of a SRB for SLS (QM-1) was completed in early 2015, a second test (QM-2) was performed in mid 2016 at Orbital ATK's Promontory, Utah facility.
== Displays == Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters are on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi, the United States Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the March Field Air Museum on March ARB in California, and at Orbital ATK's facility near Promontory, Utah. A partial filament-wound booster case is on display at Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. Two flight-worthy Solid Rocket Boosters with parts flown in 81 different Space Shuttle missions are in a vertical stack configuration at the California Science Center attached to the last surviving flight-worthy external tank (ET-94) and Space Shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles, California. The display will be opened to the public in the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in 2026 or 2027.
== Current, future and proposed uses ==
Over time several proposals to reuse the SRB design were presented – however, as of 2016 none of these proposals progressed to regular flights before being cancelled. Until the 2022 first test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), a sole test-flight of the Ares I-X prototype in 2009 was the furthest any of these proposals progressed.
=== Ares ===