Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster

The space shuttle solid rocket boosters (English Solid Rocket Booster, abbreviation SRB) were responsible for the biggest boost to transport the Space Shuttle into space. You are still the most powerful rocket engines that have ever been used.

In the future, these engines are ( Space Launch System ) can be used for the planned SLS.

Use on the Space Shuttle

The two reusable SRB produced the majority of the thrust of the Space Shuttle launch, starting with the lifting of the launch platform to a height of about 45 km, where they were dropped.

Each SRB was 45.46 m long and 3.71 m wide. The initial weight was 590 t per booster, which accounted for 84.7 t on the structure.

Each booster had at sea level thrust of 12.45 MN, which increased shortly after the start to around 14.5 MN. The ignition was 6.6 seconds after ignition of the three main engines of the orbiter, provided they had reached at least 90 % of its full thrust, which should normally have been the case within 3 seconds. The SRB represented 83 % of the required thrust at the start of the space shuttle available. 125 seconds after the start of two flaps were blown open at the upper tip of the solid boosters, followed abruptly reduced the inner pressure of the propellant charge. This ensured that both booster at the same time lose their thrust. Had a booster more thrust delivered than the other, the unbalanced thrust distribution would have led to a tilting of the orbiter. Only after the connection bolts were isolated from the external tank and pushed away the booster with the help of eight small auxiliary rockets from the tank. 75 seconds after the separation reached the SRB with 65 km of their peak height and then fell back to three parachutes. About 230 km from the starting point of the boosters fell into the Atlantic Ocean, from which she recovered, a review has been fed and reused. For the NASA operational specially the two salvage ships " Freedom Star " and " Liberty Star ".

A failure of a sealing ring of a booster due to unusually low outside temperatures the night before the launch was the cause of the Challenger crash in the 1986, all seven astronauts shortly after launch were killed.

Use according to the Space Shuttle

Constellation

When, after the Columbia disaster in 2003, the end of the space shuttle was in sight was decided by the then President of the United States, George W. Bush, the Constellation program, which secure after the end of the shuttle manned access to Earth orbit and back manned flights to the Moon and that it should allow. An enhanced SRB was as first stage for manned launch vehicle Ares I and two as a booster for the Ares V, which should also use a rating based on the basis of the external tank of the Space Shuttle main stage, provided, however, took place before the end of the program, only a suborbital test flight with the mission of Ares IX instead.

Space Launch System

After the Constellation program in 2010 was set for reasons of cost by the succeeding President Barack Obama, the Congress of the United States, however Concepts decided partly it to continue using it, so are from 2017, the SRB of in a developed form as a temporary booster for the also on the carrier system shuttles based, similar to Ares V, act new manned launcher SLS. Its first flight is to take place with the mission of EM -1, where the new NASA spaceship Orion MPCV is conveyed in its second unmanned test flight in a free return orbit around the moon and back to earth, the end of 2017.

Fuel

The fuel consists of a mixture of ammonium perchlorate ( oxidizer, 69.6 % by weight), aluminum (fuel, 16%), iron oxide ( a catalyst, 0.4% ), a polymer ( butadiene rubber or butadiene as a binding material and additional fuel, 12.04% ) and an epoxy resin curing agent (1.96 %). This mixture is referred to as ammonium perchlorates Composite Propellant ( APCP ), and provides a specific impulse of 242 s 268 s at sea level or in a vacuum.