FIRST TAKEOFF AT TEST STAND NEW MODEL USED FOR ATLAS V MOTOR.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. - A new rocket test stand got its inaugural use with the firing of an improved Atlas V This article is about the rocket. For the boat, see Atlas V (boat). The Atlas V rocket is an expendable launch vehicle formerly built by Lockheed Martin and now built by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance. rocket motor, officials said Monday. Sacramento-based Aerojet conducted the test Friday at the Air Force Research Laboratory Propulsion Directorate as part of design changes intended to make the 67-foot-long rocket motor more robust. ``It was very successful,'' said Pete Cova, Aerojet's Atlas V program director. ``This was an upgraded design. The things we did not change worked nominally, as expected. The things we did change met our test objectives.'' The company will spend the next two weeks to four weeks disassembling the motor for a full assessment. The test, the first of three such tests for the new motor design, was conducted on a new horizontal test stand built in a collaborative effort by Aerojet, Lockheed Martin For the former company, see . Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a leading multinational aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. and the Air Force. The test stand can accommodate rockets of up to 1 million pounds of thrust and is equipped with a 15-ton traveling crane (Mach.) a crane mounted on wheels; esp., an overhead crane consisting of a crab or other hoisting apparatus traveling on rails or beams fixed overhead, as in a machine shop or foundry. See also: Crane . Test-stand construction began last year and was completed in February. A second test is tentatively scheduled for May. No date has been set for the third test. Aerojet builds Atlas V motors for Lockheed Martin. The Atlas V family of motors is being developed under the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program was a United States government, primarily a Department of Defense–sponsored effort to develop at least one family of space launch vehicles, that would meet the long term needs of the military and fulfill commercial program, and is intended to replace the Delta, Atlas and Titan rocket Titan rocket Any of a series of U.S. liquid-fueled rockets originally developed as ICBMs but later used as space launch vehicles. The Titan I missile (deployed 1962–65) was designed to deliver a four-megaton nuclear warhead over 5,000 mi (8,000 km) to targets in the motor families. Jim Skeen, (661) 267-5743 james.skeen(at)dailynews.com |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion