WASHINGTON, July 2, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – NASA carried out a successful test
Tuesday of a launch abort system for a capsule designed to take US astronauts
to the moon.
The test was carried out at Cape Canaveral in Florida and carried live on
NASA TV.
The exercise aimed to test in almost real-life conditions the evacuation
of astronauts from the Orion capsule in the event of an explosion or other
problem shortly after launch of the rocket taking them into space.
This is the US equivalent of an emergency system used last October to
bring a Russian cosmonaut and a US astronaut safely back to earth when a
problem emerged with their Soyuz rocket shortly after liftoff from
Kazakhstan.
In Tuesday’s test, an unmanned Orion capsule was launched by a mini-rocket
— a repurposed first stage of an intercontinental ballistic missile — from
Cape Canaveral.
Fifty-five seconds after the launch, at an altitude of 9,500 meters, a
rocket-powered tower on top of the crew module ignited its engines to quickly
pull the Orion away from a hypothetical rocket experiencing problems.
In just 15 seconds, the capsule gained two miles of altitude.
Then the tower reoriented the capsule to prepare it for descent and
disengagement from the tower.
In real life conditions, parachutes would open to ease the manned
capsule’s fall toward the Atlantic.
In this exercise, however, parachutes were not used because they are very
expensive and have already been tested many times.
The capsule fell into the water and after ejecting its black box
recorders, was allowed to sink.
A return of US astronauts to the moon is expected in 2024 at the earliest.
Work on the Orion seems to be on schedule but the rocket that would take it
into space, the so-called SLS developed for NASA mainly by Boeing, is running
late.
The first unmanned test flights for the new lunar program known as Artemis
are theoretically scheduled for June 2020 but will probably be pushed back.