NASA to Test Emergency Ability of New Spacecraft

coondoggie writes "NASA this will show off the first mock up of its Orion space capsule ahead of the capsule's first emergency astronaut escape system test. NASA said it will jettison the full-size structural model off a simulated launch pad at the US Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch escape vehicle sits atop the Orion capsule which is slated to be bolted on an Ares rocket. The escape vehicle is made up of three solid rocket motors as well as separation mechanisms and canards, and should offer the crew an escape capability in the event of an emergency during launch, according to NASA."

Re:The real story...

[Saberwind]

Columbia originally had ejection seats for the Commander and Pilot for the first few flights. After crews exceeded two people, however, they replaced the seats with normal ones because it wouldn't be fair for only two of the crew to be able to eject while the rest perished.

Re:do what now?

[Bobb9000]

The summary doesn't describe the system itself very well - if that was how it worked I'd agree it'd be idiotic. The "vehicle" the summary mentions is actually just a separate rocket engine attached to the nose of the capsule. If something goes wrong, the astronauts don't have to go anywhere; the bolts holding the capsule onto the main Ares launch vehicle blow, and the escape rocket fires, lifting the entire Orion capsule off the Ares rocket and high enough into the air to get clear of the launch pad and any unpleasant explosions. Then the escape rocket separates from the capsule, while the capsule is hopefully high enough to land softly by parachute. For more info (and pictures), see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system [wikipedia.org] and here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/orionlas.htm [astronautix.com].

Re:It's 1963 all over again!

[johno.ie]

The Soyuz rocket has been launched over 1700 times, according to this wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]. I don't think that's completely accurate, I think that's counting the R-7 and all its derivatives. About half of that number would be my guess for the current Soyuz design.

There have been a few variations of the Soyuz manned spacecraft as technology has improved. The current version can support a 3 person crew for 30 days. When docked to a space station it can survive for 6 months in space and safely re-enter with a crew. The 98th manned Soyuz was launched in October last year. There have been 2 flights where the crew died, the very first flight when 1 cosmonaut died, and a flight in 1971 when 3 cosmonauts died. AFAIK there hasn't been a fatality on a Soyuz mission in almost 37 years.

Not counting Enterprise, because it never went to space, the shuttles have flown 121 times. There have been 2 fatal flights with 7 people killed each time. Counting Apollo 1 NASA have lost 17 astronauts in it's history but still haven't had anyone killed in space.

johno

Re:The real story...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm somewhat embarrassed for NASA that they feel the need to press release this. It should be right up there with "NASA To Tighten All Screws On New Spacecraft". Of course you're going to do that.

There are people like me who are very interested in the development of this rocket. I don't really care that it embarrasses you that NASA is putting out press releases when major equipment tests take place. This is a vitally important component that has to work properly. It is not a trivial thing to pull a payload off of a rocket in subsonic, transonic, and supersonic conditions without destroying that payload (which in this case means astronauts). You are probably also going to be annoyed when NASA puts out press releases on the dummy solid rocket booster tests, the J-2X tests, the unmanned capsule tests, etc. If that bothers you then don't go to the NASA website and read the press releases. Just turn on the TV and watch SportsCenter or something.

Re:do what now?

[darkmeridian]

The astronauts are seated in the capsule during launch. The emergency system is basically a rocket on top of the capsule. If there is an emergency, the rocket fires and pulls the capsule away from the stack.

Re:do what now?

[codepunk]

You went to college didn't you? It shows!

It is the same sort of escape system attached to the top of the
capsule as the soyuz spacecraft has. If you do some searching it
is a tried and proved emergency escape system. Look for Soyuz T-10,
a fire on the pad occurred during launch causing a explosion that
destroyed the pad. The cosmonauts where launched to safely by their
emergency escape rockets.

Re:It's 1963 all over again!

[moosesocks]

The last Soyuz failure occurred in 1983 when the rocket exploded on the pad with the crew inside.

It might be a good point to note here that the crew all survived.

In 1975, Soyuz 18a aborted its launch before reaching orbit due to a major booster malfunction. The Launch-Escape-System automatically triggered when the rocket left what was considered a "safe" trajectory, and the crew also survived.

Soyuz capsules have also survived landings in virtually every sort of terrain known to man. Although subsequent revisions have made the spacecraft's landing precision considerably better, the ability to land *anywhere* is a very nice fallback to have if an abort is necessary.

The last Soyuz known fatalities occurred in 1971.