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NASA mocked the flight of an Orion crew capsule over Cape Canaveral on Tuesday as part of a major safety system test to keep astronauts out of future lunar missions. a failed rocket.
A simplified Orion capsule – without the computers, parachutes, or crews needed for a real space mission – exploded Tuesday over Florida's Space Coast at 7:00 am EDT (11:00 am GMT) over a scene Reconstituted Blue Helmets Recall in the United States. Air Force missile stock dating back to the Cold War and removed from service.
The 28 meter high solid fuel test rocket, loaded with ballast to make it heavier, reached an altitude of about 9,400 meters (31,000 feet), resulting in a gas plume. Escape over Cape Canaveral.
The Orion capsule screwed to the top of the test booster launched its abort rocket motor about 50 seconds after takeoff, once the vehicle had reached the proper aerodynamic pressure and speed for the evacuation test. . The solid fuel abandonment engine is almost instantly accelerated to produce approximately 400,000 pounds of thrust in order to remove the servomotor capsule.
An attitude control engine located at the top of the break tower allowed the Orion capsule to fly right after the abortion for several seconds, and then reoriented the test vehicle for that its heat shield is oriented towards the ground. The abandonment system then used a drop engine to separate from the capsule, as in a real emergency at launch.
The $ 256 million abortion trial on Tuesday did not include a parachute, and the capsule, abseil and abortion system all collapsed and hit the Atlantic Ocean a few miles off Cape Canaveral. . NASA officials said the Orion Shuttle parachutes had already been adequately tested and fully qualified for human missions. Adding the recovery equipment to the test capsule would have cost more.
The Orion capsule is designed to launch with astronauts over NASA's space launch system during missions to the Moon. An unmanned SLS / Orion test flight around the moon is scheduled for the end of 2020 or early 2021, followed by the first crewed launch in the 2022 horizon, according to NASA.
This could pave the way for a lunar landing attempt in 2024 to meet the accelerated schedule set by Vice President Mike Pence in March. But that supposes that Congress agrees to finance the costs of the multi-billion dollar accelerated landing program and that SLS and Orion programs, long delayed, are on schedule for the rest of their development.
NASA officials were pleased with the test results on Tuesday, saying it was the last planned flight test for the Orion program before the first launch of the SLS / Orion tandem named Artemis 1.
Read our full article on Tuesday's dropout test.
The photos on this page show the launch of the Orion test booster, the actual abandonment test, and the high-speed descent of the rocket engine and drop tower before striking the ocean.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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