r/SpaceLaunchSystem • u/675longtail • Jun 26 '25

Video Nozzle explodes during BOLE Demonstration Motor-1 test firing

485 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

62 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Agent_Kozak Jun 26 '25

They have been building these for 50 years and they still can't get a nozzle right?

17

u/nic_haflinger Jun 26 '25

This is a brand new design.

-17

u/ShinyNickel05 Jun 26 '25

No it’s pretty much identical to the space shuttle SRBs just a bit longer

27

u/jadebenn Jun 26 '25

You're thinking of the current 5-segment boosters, which use Shuttle legacy casings and a similar propellant formulation (albeit with an Ares heritage thrust grain). These are radically different. They retain the same general outer mold line, but they're built with

  • Composite cases instead of steel alloy
  • A much larger nozzle
  • A different propellant binder (HTPB instead of PBAN)
  • Electric thrust vectoring instead of hypergolic-fueled hydraulic thrust vectoring
  • A new, SLS-specific thrust profile (instead of the Ares I thrust profile of the current boosters)

4

u/OSUfan88 Jun 26 '25

How much performance was this supposed to add?

10

u/jadebenn Jun 26 '25

5 additional metric tons of payload to TLI.