Northrop Grumman employees are Defining Possible for the next chapter of space exploration.
Jessica Rose is production team lead for Space Launch System solid rocket boosters at Northrop Grumman. She and her team ensure Space Launch System solid rocket boosters are built properly and on time for Artemis missions. Nasa's Artemis program is working to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.
“As a woman in the STEM field, it’s exciting to know that my job is helping send the first woman to the Moon,” says Jessica. “There is no limit to your success, and the Artemis program – its goals and objectives – remind us that our dreams are achievable, just like getting boots back on the Moon or getting into deep space.”
Achieving her childhood dream in STEM
Jessica’s interest in space began as a child, and though she thought she’d only know about the space program through the hard work of others, she found opportunity not far from her Idaho home.
After earning her degree in chemical engineering, chemistry and material science engineering, she secured a job with Northrop Grumman building solid rocket boosters for NASA. Now under the Artemis program, Jessica is achieving her childhood dream of contributing to space with her work on the twin solid rocket boosters.
Ensuring highest manufacturing quality
Solid rocket booster production is chemistry. Propellant, like a cake, is a precise formula of ingredients that enables the boosters to achieve an immense amount of power at ignition, while the case and insulation, which act like a cake pan, are designed to keep everything together and withstand a substantial heat threshold. The ignitor initiates the burn and the motor’s nozzle controls the pressure produced by the burning propellant and steers the rocket.
As a production team lead over the Space Launch System solid rocket boosters, Jessica and her team are responsible for ensuring the five-segment rocket boosters are manufactured to the highest quality, meet all product and process design requirements, and are on schedule. As the largest solid rocket boosters ever produced, holding 25% more propellant than those that supported the Space Shuttle Program, and designed based on flight-proven systems with upgraded technologies, this is no small feat.
After production in Northern Utah, the 10 motor segments are transported to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to be stacked and joined with the rocket’s core stage. Today, the 1.6 million pound boosters stand complete at 177-feet tall on the mobile launcher, and at launch, each will produce up to 3.6 million pounds of thrust to get the Space Launch System, the Orion spacecraft and all the cargo beyond Earth’s orbit and help Artemis, and Jessica, achieve big dreams.
Launch a career in space exploration at Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman is pioneering across every sector of space, helping government, civil and commercial customers tackle some of their biggest challenges. The company's forward-leaning, pioneering spirit is backed by a legacy of expertise that began at the dawn of the space age.
From defending freedom to advancing human discovery, Northrop Grumman is defining what is possible in space every day.
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