The shock wave and boundary layer interaction patterns in an over-expanded rocket nozzle are associated with the production of undesirable side-forces during the start-up and shut-down processes of the engine. In the present work, a computational study is carried out to investigate the effect of the transient nozzle pressure ratio (NPR) on the flow fields inside the nozzle. The unsteady, compressible, axisymmetric, Navier-Stocks equations with SST k-${omega}$ turbulence model are solved using a fully implicit finite volume scheme. NPR is varied from 2.0 to 10.0, in order to simulate the start-up and shut-down processes of the rocket engine. It is observed that the interaction patterns and the hysteresis phenomenon strongly depend on the time variation of NPR, leading to significantly different characteristics in the lateral forces.