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NASASpaceflight.com: Orbital ATK prepares for final casting of SLS EM-1 flight SRBs
Good, let's make sure that those toric joints are perfectly weather-proof this time.
Sure, but there's no issue checking one more time
There's nothing wrong in testing hardware in live conditions rather than relying entirely on stats and simulations.
When was the last failure of a segmented SRM? :dry:
SLS Block 1B upgrades
Dr. Patrick Shea inspects a nearly 4 3/4-foot (1.3 percent scale) model of the second generation of NASA's Space Launch System in a wind tunnel for ascent testing at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
The tests will help determine the larger, more powerful rocket's behavior as it climbs and accelerates through the sound barrier after launch. To also test a new optical measurement method, Ames engineers coated the SLS model with Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint, which under the lighting glows dimmer or brighter according to the air pressure acting on different areas of the rocket.
Shea, who is from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was SLS aerodynamic test lead for the work at Ames.
Credits: NASA/Ames/Dominic Hart
Robert Bobo, left, and Mike Nichols talk beneath the 221-foot-tall Test Stand 4693, the largest of two new Space Launch System test stands at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Credits: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given