The 260: The Largest Solid Rocket Motor Ever Tested

Abstract

Aerojet in the mid 1960s, under contract to NASA, built and static hot fire tested the largest solid rocket motor (SRM) in history for the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of utilizing large SRMs for space exploration. This program successfully fabricated two high strength steel chambers, loaded each with approximately 1,68 million pounds of propellant, and static test fired these giants with their nozzles up from an underground silo located adjacent to the Florida everglades. Maximum thrust and total impulse in excess of 5,000,000 lbf and 3,470,000,000 lbf-sec were achieved. Flames from the second firing, conducted at night, were seen over eighty miles away. For comparative purposes: the thrust developed was nearly 100 times that of a Minuteman III second stage and the 260 in.-dia cross-section was over 3 times that of the Space Shuttle SRM.