On Thursday, June 26, over 5,000 people flooded Promontory to watch the Northrop Grumman Corporation conduct the first of four static fire tests of NASA’s Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension’s solid rocket booster, known as BOLE, said to be the most powerful segmented solid rocket booster ever built.
Mark Pond, senior director of NASA Programs at Northrop Grumman, said BOLE addresses several issues found in the current boosters.
“What we've got today for you is the first development motor that we have developed from the ground up since Space Shuttle DM One,” said Pond.
The test was expected to provide the corporation and NASA with data to help tweak their current design before the booster’s launch – which isn’t proposed for another decade.
It is planned for the Artemis XI mission. The Artemis missions attempt to be the first to take humans to the moon since Apollo 17, with Artemis III anticipated to take the first women and black astronaut to the moon’s surface.
However, last May, the Trump-Vance administration proposed to eliminate the use of the Space Launch System rocket after Artemis III. It is up to Congress if it will pass.
Shane Kimbrough, a NASA astronaut, addressed the crowd minutes before the test.
“Today, we are here to see 4 million pounds of smoke and thunder,” said Kimbrough. “That is smoke and thunder that represents the millions of hours of investment from this community and from the people that work here and across the country … and it is a smoke and thunder that will ultimately carry us to the moon and beyond.”
During the test, the booster fired for over two minutes.
Though it seemed to have gone perfectly to the massive crowd, officials observed an anomaly near the end of the burn.
It wasn’t until a press release later that day that Northrop Grumman officials disclosed that the end nozzle of the 156-foot-long rocket motor blew apart.
Northrop Grumman’s vice president of propulsion systems, Jim Kalberer, explained that the test pushed the boundaries of the motor’s design.
An investigation is underway to pinpoint what may have caused the incident and if the Artemis missions will need to be delayed in response.
