A
bullet-shaped escape ship could show how astronauts might avoid a launch
disaster during a planned launch test. And that's just the alternate escape
system for NASA's Constellation astronauts headed back to the moon.
The
Max Launch
Abort System (MLAS) is slated to blast off to an altitude of about one mile
up, as part of an escape system test scheduled for June 20 at NASA's Wallops
Flight Facility in Virginia. The test was delayed from a June 15 launch target
to allow extra rocket checks, NASA officials said.
The
flight test includes the MLAS escape vehicle, as well as a full-scale mockup of
the Orion capsule, NASA's space shuttle replacement, tucked inside. If all goes
well, the crew capsule will eventually separate from the test vehicle and
parachute down into the Atlantic Ocean — hopefully without
problems similar to those that plagued an earlier Orion parachute
test that crashed to Earth.
The
MLAS design differs from the escape system for Orion and the Constellation
Program, which uses a single rocket motor in a tower positioned above the Orion
crew capsule to help propel astronauts to safety.
A
recent U.S. Air Force studies have questioned
whether Orion's current escape system can propel astronauts safely away from a
launch explosion. NASA has said that supercomputer analyses will show that the
launch abort system can work.
"MLAS
is a technology demonstrator not intended as a replacement for the Orion LAS
[Launch Abort System]," said Keith Henry, a NASA spokesperson, in response
to a SPACE.com query.
Instead,
the project is slated to help the NASA Engineering and Safety Center gain
experience conducting flight tests. That independently-funded branch of the
U.S. space agency is located at Langley Research Center in Virginia.
MLAS
consists of a flight test vehicle which weighs over 45,000 pounds and stands
over 33 feet tall, resembling a white bullet with stubby fins. That vehicle is
designed to house the Orion crew capsule which astronauts would ride in during
launch aboard an Ares
I rocket.
Four
solid rocket motors would fire to boost the MLAS flight test vehicle away from
danger during a theoretical launch pad emergency. For the upcoming flight test,
the same rocket motors will launch the MLAS system from the ground, instead of
from the top of a larger rocket.
The
estimated cost for MLAS comes to about $30 million, Henry noted.
NASA's
MLAS Web site notes the possibility of "re-contact" between different
parts of the test vehicle after all parachutes have deployed, because MLAS has
supposedly not been calibrated for weight and parachute performance. The space
agency does not expect any midair collisions during the planned launch to
affect either the test data or Orion's differently designed escape system.
NASA's
Constellation program is developing the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets to
replace the space shuttle fleet, which is set to retire in 2010. NASA
plans to launch the first operational Orion flights in 2015, with a target of
returning humans to the moon by 2020.
advertisement
