"This testing will be essential before any manned launches are attempted," the group announced in a press statement. A set of solid rocket motors mounted in the nosecone section are to be ignited, pulling the nosecone and crew cabin off the booster.
Purpose of the shakeout is to verify that rocket abort hardware is reliable enough for human-rating the booster.
The rocket's escape system features eight powerful solid rocket engines that burn for 5 seconds, mounted in the rockets nose cone. The crew cabin, or space capsule, is built to carry three Canadian Arrow astronauts.
Launch pad abort
The Arrow is currently completing arrangements for the tests at an Ontario location, to be announced at a future date. Those tests will include:
-- A launch pad abort test, including testing of the powerful solid rockets that pull the crew cabin to safety in the event of problems while the rocket is on the pad.
-- Separation of the nose cone from the crew cabin.
-- Deployment of parachutes for safe recovery of the nose cone and crew cabin.
-- Testing of aerodynamics to ensure the rocket is able to reach the correct altitude and does not display any flight characteristics that are not normal to flight.
-- A Mach 1, the speed of sound, abort and high altitude abort (application for permission to fly currently being processed).
The Canadian Arrow team is one of several groups from around the world now competing for the $10 million Ansari X Prize. That money will go to the first team that can launch a passenger space vehicle 62 miles (100 kilometers) to the edge of space, land safely and repeat the feat within two weeks.
Untapped talent
On-going X Prize efforts are intended to spearhead suborbital, as well as orbital passenger flight. The payoff from the X Prize is likely to manifest itself in numbers of ways, according to space industry officials.
"We support any and all efforts to foster innovation in the U.S. aerospace sector. The X-Prize has the potential to bring new and untapped talent to the surface," said Bruce Mahone, Director of Space Policy at the Aerospace Industries Association of America in Arlington, Virginia.
"As much of our aerospace workforce matures and retires over the next decade, this talent will be needed and appreciated," Mahone explained.
Ordinary people to take flight
The X Prize has had significant impact on space consciousness and public perception, said Patti Grace Smith, Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation within the Federal Aviation Administration.
Smith said the X Prize, during its eight years of existence, has highlighted the benefits to be derived from commercial space transportation. "This has resulted from the efforts of the X Prize Foundation to publicize the $10 million jackpot, but increasingly from the media coverage of the efforts of contestants to prepare for actual launches in pursuit of the prize."
"I believe this has led to increased acceptance by the public that there is a place for non-astronauts in space and that at least some of the wealthier among us might have the chance to experience space, if only in its suborbital configuration, in the not too distant future," Smith told SPACE.com.
The Russian flights of Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth played a role in increasing public awareness of space possibilities, Smith said. "But I think the more personal scale of the X Prize undertakings and the non-government aspect of it makes it seem more relevant to ordinary people."
"I think most of us who are committed to the development of a robust commercial space transportation industry hope the X Prize will have the same affect on this industry that Charles Lindbergh's winning of the Orteig Prize had on the nascent aviation industry after his 1927 feat," Smith concluded.
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