Johnson team helps make crucial Orion abort test happen
2017-11-16
NASA engineers at Johnson Space Center will begin climbing all over an Orion test capsule—inside and out—starting February 2018 as they outfit it for the most dynamic test yet of the spacecraft’s Launch Abort System (LAS) the following year.
In April 2019, the capsule, launched on an Orbital ATK-provided test booster, will speed through the atmosphere to roughly 850 mph, climbing past an altitude of 31,000 feet, when the powerful reverse-flow solid rocket abort motor that is part of the LAS accelerates the 22,000 pound test article to safety on Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2). The crucial test will examine whether a fully functioning LAS, blasting off from a Florida launch complex, is ready to protect astronauts during launch and ascent on missions that will send astronauts to the Moon and beyond.
It will be engineers from several organizations at Johnson who have installed many of the systems that eventually will ensure Orion is the safest spacecraft ever built for deep-space missions.
Work on this project began at Johnson in October 2015. To prepare for the high-stress, three-minute test, employees in Engineering and the Orion Program are designing and fabricating an integrated crew module and separation ring (CSR). The CSR includes development of a suite of avionics as well as power and software subsystems that will provide Orion’s guidance, navigation and control, execute the test mission sequence and retrieve the data generated in flight.
“The vehicle we’re building is uniquely developed for AA-2,” said CSR Project Manager Dr. Jon Olansen. “The full suite of Orion avionics is more than needed to execute an abort test, so we are able to target our design approach and effectively achieve the test objectives. We are focused on the essential requirements necessary to execute an abort and provide valuable data towards certifying future human Orion missions.”
The Johnson team will begin installing these systems when the test article arrives in February as an empty structure. An earlier launch date of April 2019 announced this month, eight months ahead of plan, is now possible because of lean-development practices.
While this flight vehicle will be similar to Orion in shape, mass and vehicle interfaces, other attributes are distinctive to the AA-2 mission. There will be 782 measurements taken from the crew module, separation ring, abort test booster and LAS. These measurements will provide a diversity of flight data on function, performance and environments for use in certifying the launch abort system, retention and release and umbilical mechanisms.
The AA-2 test is quick, fast and high, lasting less than three minutes. The test crew module will reach an average maximum speed of Mach 1.5, or 1,020 mph during the abort motor firing. Timing is crucial, as the abort events must match the abort timing requirements of the Orion spacecraft to the millisecond for the flight test data to be valid.
“This will be the only time we test a fully active Launch Abort System during ascent before we fly crew, so verifying that it works as predicted, in the event of an emergency, is a critical step before we put astronauts onboard,” said Don Reed, manager of the Orion Program’s Flight Test Management Office. “No matter what approach you take, having to move a 22,000-pound vehicle away quickly from a catastrophic event, like a potential rocket failure, is extremely challenging.”
The Johnson team is also responsible for integrating the vehicle in preparation for flight. The crew module will be outfitted on-site in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility south high bay. Once completed in summer of 2018, it will be shipped to Plum Brook Station at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio for acoustic testing. During that time, the separation ring will arrive at Johnson to have all its sensors installed. After installation and testing are complete, both systems will go to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for integration with the rest of the flight test vehicle.
“It has been very gratifying to watch this relatively small team take on this challenge and use lean-development practices to bring a full spacecraft integration activity to fruition,” Olansen said.
The CSR Project is a joint effort between Orion and the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Programs. NASA’s Langley Research Center is providing the primary and secondary structure for the crew module, and NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is providing the developmental flight instrumentation design, components and sensors.
Orion and its crews will face the same high-stress ascent conditions when launched atop Space Launch System rockets starting in the early 2020s, sending astronauts beyond the Moon—father than humans have ever gone in deep space. Exploration Mission-2 will be NASA’s first crewed mission in a series of flights that will help the agency build a flexible, reusable and sustainable infrastructure that will last multiple decades and support missions of increasing complexity, including the first human missions to Mars.
Johnson is leading a multi-center effort to validate Orion’s launch abort system during Ascent Abort-2, which will launch on an abort test booster provided by Orbital ATK. Image Credit: NASA
In April 2019, the capsule, launched on an Orbital ATK-provided test booster, will speed through the atmosphere to roughly 850 mph, climbing past an altitude of 31,000 feet, when the powerful reverse-flow solid rocket abort motor that is part of the LAS accelerates the 22,000 pound test article to safety on Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2). The crucial test will examine whether a fully functioning LAS, blasting off from a Florida launch complex, is ready to protect astronauts during launch and ascent on missions that will send astronauts to the Moon and beyond.
It will be engineers from several organizations at Johnson who have installed many of the systems that eventually will ensure Orion is the safest spacecraft ever built for deep-space missions.
Work on this project began at Johnson in October 2015. To prepare for the high-stress, three-minute test, employees in Engineering and the Orion Program are designing and fabricating an integrated crew module and separation ring (CSR). The CSR includes development of a suite of avionics as well as power and software subsystems that will provide Orion’s guidance, navigation and control, execute the test mission sequence and retrieve the data generated in flight.
“The vehicle we’re building is uniquely developed for AA-2,” said CSR Project Manager Dr. Jon Olansen. “The full suite of Orion avionics is more than needed to execute an abort test, so we are able to target our design approach and effectively achieve the test objectives. We are focused on the essential requirements necessary to execute an abort and provide valuable data towards certifying future human Orion missions.”
The Johnson team will begin installing these systems when the test article arrives in February as an empty structure. An earlier launch date of April 2019 announced this month, eight months ahead of plan, is now possible because of lean-development practices.
While this flight vehicle will be similar to Orion in shape, mass and vehicle interfaces, other attributes are distinctive to the AA-2 mission. There will be 782 measurements taken from the crew module, separation ring, abort test booster and LAS. These measurements will provide a diversity of flight data on function, performance and environments for use in certifying the launch abort system, retention and release and umbilical mechanisms.
The AA-2 test is quick, fast and high, lasting less than three minutes. The test crew module will reach an average maximum speed of Mach 1.5, or 1,020 mph during the abort motor firing. Timing is crucial, as the abort events must match the abort timing requirements of the Orion spacecraft to the millisecond for the flight test data to be valid.
“This will be the only time we test a fully active Launch Abort System during ascent before we fly crew, so verifying that it works as predicted, in the event of an emergency, is a critical step before we put astronauts onboard,” said Don Reed, manager of the Orion Program’s Flight Test Management Office. “No matter what approach you take, having to move a 22,000-pound vehicle away quickly from a catastrophic event, like a potential rocket failure, is extremely challenging.”
The Johnson team is also responsible for integrating the vehicle in preparation for flight. The crew module will be outfitted on-site in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility south high bay. Once completed in summer of 2018, it will be shipped to Plum Brook Station at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio for acoustic testing. During that time, the separation ring will arrive at Johnson to have all its sensors installed. After installation and testing are complete, both systems will go to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for integration with the rest of the flight test vehicle.
“It has been very gratifying to watch this relatively small team take on this challenge and use lean-development practices to bring a full spacecraft integration activity to fruition,” Olansen said.
The CSR Project is a joint effort between Orion and the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Programs. NASA’s Langley Research Center is providing the primary and secondary structure for the crew module, and NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is providing the developmental flight instrumentation design, components and sensors.
Orion and its crews will face the same high-stress ascent conditions when launched atop Space Launch System rockets starting in the early 2020s, sending astronauts beyond the Moon—father than humans have ever gone in deep space. Exploration Mission-2 will be NASA’s first crewed mission in a series of flights that will help the agency build a flexible, reusable and sustainable infrastructure that will last multiple decades and support missions of increasing complexity, including the first human missions to Mars.
Johnson is leading a multi-center effort to validate Orion’s launch abort system during Ascent Abort-2, which will launch on an abort test booster provided by Orbital ATK. Image Credit: NASA