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NASA'S Successful Rocket Test To Aid Heavy-Lift Rocket Design

A new large rocket test was successfully launched today by NASA.

The results from the structural strength test at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will help future heavy-lift launch vehicles weigh less and reduce development costs.

This trailblazing project is examining the safety margins needed in the design of future, large launch vehicle structures. Test results will be used to develop and validate structural analysis models and generate new "shell-buckling knockdown factors" - complex engineering design standards essential to launch vehicle design.

"This type of research is critical to NASA developing a new heavy-lift vehicle. The Authorization Act of 2010 gave us direction to take the nation beyond low-Earth orbit, but it is the work of our dedicated team of engineers and researchers that will make future NASA exploration missions a reality."-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden

The aerospace industry's shell buckling knockdown factors date back to Apollo-era studies when current materials, manufacturing processes and high-fidelity computer modeling did not exist.

The Shell Buckling Knockdown Factor Project is led by engineers at NASA's Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), and NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. NASA's heavy-lift space launch system will be developed and managed at Marshall.

For more information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration

Source: NASA