© 2024 90.7 WMFE. All Rights Reserved.
90.7 Orlando • 89.5 Ocala
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

NASA Tests SLS Rocket Booster

The first full scale booster test at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems’ test facilities in Promontory, Utah in March 2015. Photo: NASA
The first full scale booster test at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems’ test facilities in Promontory, Utah in March 2015. Photo: NASA

Two solid rocket boosters, each 177 feet tall, will help NASA’s next generation of rocket escape the grasp of Earth’s gravity.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will help carry the Orion capsule to places like deep space and an orbit around the moon, and do so as early as 2018.

Tuesday's test will fire the booster for two-minutes, the same amount of time they’ll burn in a real mission providing 3.6 million pounds of thrust.

It’s the last of two test firings of the booster before for Exploration Mission 1 – an unpiloted test flight of the Orion capsule launching from Kennedy Space Center.

The test takes place in Utah and airs on NASA TV starting at 9:30 am.

Brendan Byrne is WMFE's Assistant News Director, managing the day-to-day operations of the WMFE newsroom, editing daily news stories, and managing WMFE's internship program.

Byrne also hosts WMFE's weekly radio show and podcast "Are We There Yet?" which explores human space exploration.