Northrop completes extreme cold test of PrSM rocket motor

By Ethan Sterenfeld / January 7, 2022 at 1:18 PM

Northrop Grumman has successfully completed a static test of the rocket motor for the Army's Precision Strike Missile in extreme cold conditions, the company announced this week.

The extreme cold test took place in September, and Northrop had previously performed a similar test in the hottest conditions that the rocket motor is designed to handle, Steve Weiss, director of tactical propulsion and ordnance at the company, told Inside Defense in a Jan. 6 interview.

Additional testing of the rocket motor is planned for this year, he said. Including the tests that have already been performed, there will be 18 static tests for qualification testing.

Temperature extremes can be some of the highest-risk situations for rocket motors, Ken Tappe, director of business development for tactical propulsion at Northrop, said during the interview.

“There’s a lot of analysis that goes into figuring out what are your highest areas of risk, but typically at either the cold or the hot temperature extreme is one of those conditions that is most stressing on the components in the rocket motor,” Tappe said.

Northrop expects the rocket motor to be qualified this calendar year, to be ready for the PrSM be fielded in fiscal year 2023, Tappe said.

PrSM is part of the Army’s long-range fires modernization portfolio. The missile, which will replace the Army Tactical Missile System, is expected to be urgently fielded in FY-23, with full fielding in FY-25.

The division supplying the PrSM rocket motor was part of Orbital ATK before Northrop acquired the company in 2018, Weiss said.

“We’ve done a lot of heavy investment on the insensitive munitions side, which is key in this motor here, and just in the overall high performance of our propulsion system,” he said.

Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor on the PrSM, selected the missile’s rocket motor in 2016, a company spokeswoman wrote in an email to Inside Defense this week.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, which Lockheed is trying to buy, currently supplies the rocket motors for ATACMS.

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