U.S. space agency NASA has concluded its second rocket booster test, and that test had gone well at the ATK facility in Utah. The second rocket booster is part of a give-segment motor, an upgrade from the four-segment booster that is part of the current space shuttle design, and is intended as a part of a process to replace the current space shuttle that will retire in 2011.
Although the new shuttle’s design is uncertain, the design of the booster rockets were part of a multi-billion dollar project to build spacecrafts and rockets for manned moon mission and space exploration. However, there may be competing forces that may keep NASA on the ground. For one, the Obama administration says that the President wants to cancel space flights and instead urges NASA to find new technologies before developing this next-generation rocket. Congress, meanwhile, has other ideas and politicians are concerned that the President’s plans may create too large a gap in U.S. spaceflight capabilities.
This latest test, according to NASA, was “absolutely excellent”, giving “the chamber pressures and the thrust pressures that we were expecting”. The first test was done September a year ago.
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