Space Launch System Booster Separation Supersonic Powered Testing with Surface and Off-body Measurements

Abstract

A wind tunnel test was run in the NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel simulating the separation of the two solid rocket boosters (SRB) from the core stage of the NASA Space Launch System (SLS). The test was run on a 0.9% scale model of the SLS Block 1B Cargo (27005) configuration and the SLS Block 1B Crew (28005) configuration at a Mach of 4.0. High pressure air was used to simulate plumes from the booster separation motors located at the nose and aft skirt of the two boosters. Force and moment data were taken on both SRBs and on the core stage. Schlieren still photos and video were recorded throughout testing. A set of points were acquired using Cross-correlation Doppler Global Velocimetry (CCDGV) readings to get 3 component velocity measurements between the core and the left-hand SRB. The CCDGV laser was utilized to record flow visualization in the same location, between the core and the left-hand SRB. Pressure Sensitive Paint data were taken on a separate set of runs. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) runs were computed on a subset of the wind tunnel data points for comparison. A combination of the force/moment, CCDGV and Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) data (as well as schlieren images) at the CFD-specified test conditions will be used to validate the CFD simulations that will be used to build an SLS booster separation database at flight conditions.Notice to the Reader -The Space Launch System, including its predicted performance and certain other features and characteristics, has been defined by the U.S. Government to be Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU). Information deemed to be SBU requires special protection and may not be disclosed to an international audience. To comply with SBU restrictions, details such as absolute values have been removed from some plots and figures in this paper. It is the opinion of the authors that despite these alterations, there is no loss of meaningful technical content.