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Launch abort system installed on Orion for December test flight

Engineers have installed a test version of the launch abort system (LAS) for the first test flight of the Orion capsule in December.

The LAS will not be active during the uncrewed EFT-1 mission, but during future missions it will be equipped to act within milliseconds to pull the spacecraft and its crew away from its rocket so that Orion could parachute safely back to Earth.  While the abort motors  are inert and not filled with solid fuel, the LAS will have an active jettison motor so that it can pull itself and the nose fairing away from the spacecraft shortly before Orion goes into orbit. The flight test will provide data on the abort system’s performance during Orion’s trip to space.

Based on what I know of the Orion/SLS launch schedule, I don’t think NASA ever intends to test it during a full launch of the SLS rocket. For one thing, the rocket is too expensive and NASA can’t afford to waste a launch just to test this one component. For another, the rocket’s development is too slow as it is, with the first launch not scheduled until 2018 and the first manned flight not until 2021, at the earliest. If they add a launch test of the abort system, NASA might not fly an SLS manned mission until late in the 2020s.

Meanwhile, NASA is sure insisting that SpaceX do such tests. And they will, since their capsule and rocket is affordable and quick to launch. What does that tell us about the two systems? Which would you buy if you were the paying customer?

Oh wait, you are the paying customer! Too bad you your managers in Congress don’t seem interested in managing your money very wisely.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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3 comments

  • mpthompson

    Apollo didn’t use a Saturn V to test the command module LAS, but used the Little Joe (if I recall correctly) to simulate the environment the LAS would be operating under. It would seem prudent that Orion LAS be verified in the same way. Perhaps on a Falcon 9R? :-)

  • Edward

    Hopefully, the Falcon 9 test would go better than the Little Joe test for Apollo.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqeJzItldSQ (3 minutes)

  • Pzatchok

    This thing basically has to act like the ejection seat in a fighter jet.

    And those are designed to work even from the ground.
    They are powerful enough to launch the pilot high enough that the parachute has just enough altitude to open and set the pilot down relatively safe.

    All they have to do to test this thing is pretty much just attach it to Orion and set it off sending the Orion high enough for the parachute to open and slow the craft down. if it gets it high enough to set it down pretty safely then it works. If not then back to the drawing boards.

    If it works from the ground then it will work at altitude.

    No big expense or even a huge waste of time. They could even test it on a mockup of Orion.

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