[3][4] Each Space Shuttle SRB provided a maximum 14.7 MN (3,300,000 lbf) thrust,[5] roughly double the most powerful single-combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever flown, the Rocketdyne F-1.

The motor segments of the SRBs were manufactured by Thiokol of Brigham City, Utah, which was later purchased by Alliant Techsystems (ATK).

The prime contractor for the integration of all the components and retrieval of the spent SRBs, was United Space Boosters Inc., a subsidiary of Pratt & Whitney.

Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but four were recovered – those from STS-4 (due to a parachute malfunction) and STS-51-L (terminated by the range during the Challenger disaster).

[9] The two reusable SRBs provided the main thrust to lift the shuttle off the launch pad and up to an altitude of about 150,000 ft (28 mi; 46 km).

On the launch pad, each booster also was attached to the mobile launcher platform at the aft skirt by four holddown studs, with frangible nuts that were severed at liftoff.

Each SRB consists of two self-contained, independent Hydraulic Power Units (HPUs), used to actuate the thrust vector control (TVC) system.

With four identical commands to the four servovalves, the actuator force-sum action prevented, instantaneously, a single erroneous input affecting power ram motion.

If differential-pressure sensing detected the erroneous input persisting over a predetermined time, an isolating valve would be selected, excluding it from the force-sum entirely.

The solid rocket motor ignition commands are sent by the orbiter computers through the Master Events Controllers (MECs) to the safe and arm device NASA standard detonators (NSDs) in each SRB.

The GPC launch sequence also controls certain critical main propulsion system valves and monitors the engine ready indications from the SSMEs.

With the SRBs reaching full thrust, the hold-down bolts are blown, releasing the vehicle stack, the net rotating moment is zero, and the net vehicle thrust (opposing gravity) is positive, lifting the orbiter stack vertically from the launch pedestal, controllable through the coordinated gimbal movements of the SSMEs and the SRB exhaust nozzles.

The RSS was only activated once – during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (37 seconds after the breakup of the vehicle, when the SRBs were in uncontrolled flight).

The safe and arm device provides mechanical isolation between the NSDs and the CDF before launch and during the SRB separation sequence.

The first message, called arm, allows the onboard logic to enable a destruct and illuminates a light on the flight deck display and control panel at the commander and pilot station.

The drogue disreefs twice after specified time delays (using redundant 7- and 12-second reefing line cutters), and it reorients/stabilizes the SRB for main chute deployment.

Because the parachutes provide for a nozzle-first impact, air is trapped in the empty (burned out) motor casing, causing the booster to float with the forward end approximately 30 feet (9 m) out of the water.

Salt Water Activated Release (SWAR) devices are now incorporated into the main chute riser lines to simplify recovery efforts and reduce damage to the SRB.

The cause of the accident was found by the Rogers Commission to be "a faulty design unacceptably sensitive to a number of factors" of the SRB joints compounded by unusually cold weather the morning of the flight.

[29] Shortly before the disaster, engineers representing Thiokol recommended scrubbing the launch due to the cold temperatures, but were overridden by NASA managers.

To correct the situation and ensure higher strength margins during ascent, the attach ring was redesigned to encircle the motor case completely (360°).

[31] The prime contractor for the manufacture of the SRB motor segments was ATK Launch Systems (formerly Morton Thiokol Inc.) Wasatch Division based in Magna, Utah.

[citation needed] Components of the SRBs were transported from Utah to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida via rail over twelve days covering 2,000 miles (3,200 km) and eight states.

[33] On May 2, 2007, a freight train carrying segments of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters derailed in Myrtlewood, Alabama, after a rail trestle collapsed.

[34] In 1988–1989, NASA was planning on replacing the post-Challenger SRBs with a new Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) to be built by Aerojet[35] at a new facility, designed by subcontractor, RUST International, on the location of a cancelled Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plant, at Yellow Creek, Mississippi (Yellow Creek Nuclear Plant).

[35] The ASRM program was cancelled in 1993[36] after robotic assembly systems and computers were on-site and approximately 2 billion dollars spent, in favor of continued use of the SRB after design flaw corrections.

Until the 2022 first test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), a sole test-flight of the Ares I-X prototype in 2009 was the furthest any of these proposals progressed.

NASA initially planned to reuse the four-segment SRB design and infrastructure in several Ares rockets, which would have propelled the Orion spacecraft into orbit.

In 2008, PlanetSpace proposed the Athena III launch vehicle for ISS resupply flights under the COTS program; it would have featured 2+1⁄2 segments from the original SRB design.

Modifications for the SLS included the addition of a center booster segment, new avionics, and new insulation which eliminates the Shuttle SRB's asbestos and is 860 kg (1,900 lb) lighter.