Naomi Cooper
Northrop Grumman has completed the first full-scale static test fire of a stage-one solid rocket motor for the U.S. Air Force’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missile system.
The company said Monday the LGM-35A Sentinel stage-one solid rocket motor was fired at its test facility in Promontory, Utah, to verify the technology’s design approach and evaluate its characteristics before moving to the next testing phases.
“The results allow us to validate and anchor our stage-one motor performance before entering qualification testing and completing system analyses, key to lowering risk as we mature the Sentinel design and advance towards critical design review,” said Sarah Willoughby, vice president of the Sentinel program at Northrop.
Willoughby added that the defense contractor uses digital engineering to design and produce the next-generation missile weapon system, which will replace the fielded Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
Northrop manufactures stages one and two of Sentinel’s three-stage propulsion system.
In February, the company concluded a series of wind tunnel tests to demonstrate the missile’s design maturity.
