New 5-Segment Motor Can Ensure Shuttle Orbit

Imagine a space shuttle motor -- one motor -- that can virtually guarantee the space plane achieves orbit even in an emergency. They've been imagining that a lot at the Alliant Thiokol plant. And they've demonstrated the concept. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports the country's biggest space shuttle motor was tested successfully not long ago at the company's Propulsion Division facility in Promontory (UT).

"It was a great success," said Jody Singer, manager of the Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor Project Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Right now, shuttle motors have four segments, each 30-feet long and filled with propellant. Together they can generate 3.3 million pounds of thrust. The new motor comes in five easy pieces and generates 3.6 million pounds of thrust. If it were your Chevy engine, it would generate 19.6 million horsepower. Woof. That would mean the shuttle could carry an extra 23,000 pounds of supplies and equipment.

"With the new motor you enhance the safety of the event because you can still achieve orbit. So no emergency landings (would be needed)," said Mike Kahn, program manager at ATK Thiokol. The idea is, with a fifth motor, the shuttle would have enough thrust to climb into orbit even if the main engine failed sometime in the first 120 seconds of a mission. Right now, NASA relies on emergency rockets -- which have never been used.

The test run lasted 128-seconds, a tad longer than needed.

Alas, completion of the motor project is still years away. And, for now, that's academic, given the fact that the shuttles are still grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster. NASA shuttles are expected to be flying again in about a year.

FMI: www.nasa.gov