Test facility fires 100th rocket motor

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Engineers at Arnold Engineering Development Center successfully test fired the 100th rocket motor in the J-6 Large Rocket Motor Test Facility last month. 

The significance of the event was not lost on those taking part in the test.

"This was definitely a major milestone for AEDC and the Minuteman Program," said Kathy Morgan, a Northrop Grumman propulsion engineering representative, who was on hand to witness the test.

James Brooks, AEDC's project manager on the test, said the J-6 team is looking for any age-related problems that may develop with this series of Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Stage 3 rocket motors.

"We look for the degradation in ballistic performance or any kind of structural problems that you would see from this type of test," he said. "The motor we tested today was manufactured in December 2000.

"After the motor leaves here, they will dissect it and look for any structural problems, in the casing, insulator and any kind of problems they would encounter there. But performance and structural integrity is what they're looking for in this kind of test."

Brooks said that as active Minuteman missile boosters are in the process of being replaced, tests like this will help validate new production replacement program boosters in the field.

The J6 facility was built in the early 1990s and has been used for testing Minuteman stage 2 and stage 3 rocket motors, STAR 37 FM space motors, Peacekeeper ICBM stage 2 and stage 3 rocket motors, and ORBUS 1A rocket motors.

"Our first test in J6 was in August 1994 and was a Peacekeeper Stage 2 rocket motor," said Randy Quinn, an AEDC project manager on the just completed aging and surveillance test.

Quinn said it's important to know how Minuteman missiles fit into the big picture.

"The Minuteman is one of the three key components of our nuclear triad deterrent system," he said. "We've got our land based, submarine-based and air-borne platforms and the land based part of that system is a very critical component.

"Proper stewardship of our national nuclear defense forces requires the Air Force to validate the operational readiness and reliability of our land-based ICBM weapon system. We want to make sure that these motors are performing the way they should. We have to make sure this weapon system will work the way it should if we ever need it - it has to work."