1. AAE 450 Spring 2008 Stephen Bluestone February 28, 2008 Propulsion Group Historic Solid Rocket Failure Probability

2. Historical Failure Probability  U.S. Solid Rocket Systems (Failures/Attempts) –6 / 412 (1.4%) Failures between 1980-2004 1 –19 / 3382 (0.56%) Failures between 1964-1998 2  Solid Propulsion Failure Rates (Failures/Attempts) –Upper Stage 0.0161 161/10000 –Monolithic 0.0025 25/10000 –Segmented 0.0077 77/10000 –Total 0.005656/10000 AAE 450 Spring 2008 Propulsion – Propellants

3. Catastrophic Failure  Historically Solid Rocket failure results in catastrophic failure 37% of the time (19 solid failures, 7 were catastrophic) [1964-1998] 1  Solid Rocket Failure Rate (Failures/Attempts) –Failure 0.0056, 56/10000 –Catastrophic Failure 0.0021,21/10000  Working with Prop and whole team to finalize all designs and prop systems AAE 450 Spring 2008 Propulsion - Propellants Future Work

4. References 1.Chang, I-Shih., Tomei, Edmardo Joe., “Solid Rocket Failures in World Space Launches.” AIAA Paper 2005-3793, Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, 41st, Tuscon, Az, July 10-13, 2005 2.Sauvageu, Donald R., Allen, Brian D., “Launch Vehicle Historical Reliability.” AIAA-1998-3979 AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, 34th, Cleveland, OH, July 13-15, 1998 AAE 450 Spring 2008

5.  Reference 2 is based off a study of the following U.S. solid rocket launch systems included –Taurus –Conestoga –Athena –Minotaur –Pegasus –Scout