NASA Will Man Destruct Switch Just In Case

Ant writes "Popular Mechanics reports if the looming Discovery mission or any other between now and the spacecraft's retirement loses control, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is prepared to ditch it in the Atlantic ocean — or blow it up. The article also shows complete no-fly-zone maps and a photograph of the switch."

Not news

[FuturePastNow]

This is such a non-story. NASA has a Range Safety Officer for every single launch, manned or not, and always has.

Re:Four Buttons?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Test" button probably checks the detonation circuits, WITHOUT igniting the actual charges. And the "Safe" button is probably for permanently disarming the charges once the shuttle's in orbit.

Re:People inside?

[Chris Mattern]

Didn't RTFA, but are they planning on blowing it up with people inside, if something goes wrong.

Yes, they are. They always have. *Every* NASA rocket launch includes a self-destruct to prevent ground casualties. This includes the manned missions. In such cases where it would be used, the crew is either dead or will unavoidably be dead very shortly, and the lives on the ground must be saved.

Already been used

[camperdave]

Not only are the destruct switches active during each and every launch, they have actually been used on one particular launch. When Challenger's [wikipedia.org] external fuel tank blew up, destroying the shuttle, the solid rocket boosters started to fly out of control.

At T+110.250, the Range Safety Officer (RSO) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station sent radio signals that activated the range safety system's "destruct" packages on board both solid rocket boosters. This was a normal contingency procedure, undertaken because the RSO judged the free-flying SRBs a possible threat to land or sea. The same destruct signal would have destroyed the External Tank had it not already disintegrated.[11]

Re:Four Buttons?

[Detritus]

The test function allows you to verify that everything is working without blowing anything up or endangering anyone. Think of it as a "NOP" command to the launch vehicle's range safety system.

Re:Where is Slashdot's self-destruct switch?

[dotancohen]

You can fix that for yourself here:
http://slashdot.org/help [slashdot.org]

Sounds Familiar...

[Kyle_Katarn-(ISF)]

Computer, activate self-destruct sequence, authorization Janeway Pi-One-One-Seven.

"Warp core overload initiated"

That's how they should do it...

As if this is new..

[bigattichouse]

Its funny this is "news" - they've had that switch since day one, if I know the military. And the no-fly zone has probably be a registered flightplan with the FAA since a year before day one. Interesting, yes, but not news since at least 1978 (or whenever it was they were building the fleet). I knew a guy who worked on the software on the early fleet. Made me wonder about the whole thing.

Re:What a kewl job

[hughk]

RSO usually also has to do a lot of work before the launch. They are ultimately responsible that there have been no incursions into the various danger zones. This would mean they would be talking to police, coastguard as well.

Re:People inside?

[Rorschach1]

And if you need an example of why those destruct systems are required, watch this [youtube.com].

I've met at least one of the Range Safety Officers while working out at Cape Canaveral. It's not something they like to talk about much, when it comes to the Shuttle.

Other abort modes!

[pumpkinpuss]

In addition to the destruct switch, there are other flight plans for an intact abort in case of problems. These abort modes are: Return to Landing Site (after SRBs are jettisoned, shuttle returns to Kennedy Space Center); East Coast Abort Landing where the orbiter lands on a different runway somewhere up the East Coast of the US; Transoceanic Abort Landing where the orbiter lands somewhere in Europe or Africa; Abort to Orbit; and Abort Once Around.

The Solid Rocket Boosters can't be stopped once they are started, but they have their own navigation system (rate gyro assemblies, and inertial measurement units) that are considered as/more reliable as those on the orbiter due to the rigidity of the SRBs. So the reason this "self destruct" button exists is because there is no "off" button for the SRBs, but, as far as I know, it is only an issue if its quad-redundant navigation system fails and somehow its thrust gets stuck in an unsafe vector, and that is very unlikely.

More detail, including why you can't jettison the flight deck with all the crewmembers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes [wikipedia.org]

Re:People inside?

[tgatliff]

You really do not need to find an example... They used this procedure during the Challenger accident. Meaning, once the main booster had already exploded, they quickly detonated the individual spiraling side boosters to prevent potential problems. In this case the crew and craft had already separated and were presumed already dead, but they still needed to use the detonation procedure...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Technical details

[Anonymous Coward]

For the technical details on how this works, check out an old Risks article here [ncl.ac.uk]. They put a lot of thought into the system.

Retired astronaut Mike Mullane talked about this..

[Ellis D. Tripp]

in his book "Riding Rockets". The Range Safety system is nothing new, having been on almost every manned and unmanned launch that NASA or the USAF ever put up. The RSO is an Air Force officer, who intentionally avoids any social contact with the astronauts, so as not to allow personal feelings override his/her duty to protect the public from a wayward launch.

In Mullane's book, he questions the the mindset of the NASA engineer who thought it a good idea to have the RSS system light an indicator lamp in the shuttle cockpit, giving the astronauts a second or 2 of notice (with no way to intervene) before the charges go off.

He also relates an amusing story of a fellow astronaut making obscene comments about the RSO's mother over the Air/Ground link as they sat on the pad waiting out a launch hold.