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NASA Successfully Tests Orion's New Crew Escape System
Boccaccio writes "NASA on Wednesday successfully tested its MLAS alternative launch escape system designed for the new Orion Crew module. MLAS, or Max Launch Abort System, is named after the inventor of the crew escape system on the Mercury program, Maxime (Max) Faget and consists of four rocket motors built into a fairing that encloses an Orion module during Launch. MLAS is designed to pull the crew away from the main rocket stack during the critical first 2.5 minutes of flight in the event of a catastrophic failure. The advantage of the MLAS system over the more traditional LAS (Launch Abort System) is that it reduces the total height of the rocket, lowering the center of gravity and adding stability, and potentially allowing higher fuel load.
You can watch a video of the launch at the NASA website, and there are also a bunch of pictures."
From the NASA site, here is the video of the launch:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/qt.nasa-global/ccvideos/larc/mlas-launch.mov&_id=undefined&_title=undefined&_tnimage=test.gif#
However, I cannot get it to play on my Kubuntu system.
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Wow, that was beautiful!
You don't want to trust Onion's news Crew Escape System, it's probably a hatch to infinity. Don't they know it's a satirical magazine and not a space exploration tech company?
I just watched the video - and while it definitely is a cool concept, what immediately came
to mind is the increased complexity of the system. I counted five separations (the launch itself
would be a separation in reality) of some piece or another and multiple chute deployments before the
crew capsule was safely floating down on its main parachutes.
I'm sure there's redundancy in there so a single failure wouldn't be fatal (although not dropping the
casing preventing main chute deployment would be bad), but it is quite a step up from the regular
"separate, fire one solid booster, wait a bit, deploy chutes" apporach.
The summary doesn't really make this clear, but the baseline Orion design uses a standard LAS system.
The MLAS is only being developed as a possible alternate, if the LAS solution proves unworkable.
of the efforts and genius that is going into these.. (ok, moment over, bash away..)
This NASA engineering. A backup of a backup!
However when looking at the video there is the posibilty they get other elements of the escape capsule on their head after a succesful landing.
Also i am a bit subrised they do not escape sideways. In the final system they have a rocket under their feet that is pushing up. escaping in that direction might not be the safest direction if they already have altitude.
This is from Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins. The story as Collins tells it is that as the crew entered the capsule for the launch he noticed that Armstrong had a loose strap on the thigh of his pressure suit which was about to snare a T shaped hand controller. The launch escape system is triggered by twisting the controller so there was a risk of accidently triggering it. In the book he suggests the last word spoken in the CM before the LES fired would be "oops".
http://michaelsmith.id.au
They shoulda ran with it. Awesome names and acronyms have come out of stranger places. For example, my Dad knows one of the engineers that built the San Diego Wild Animal park. They were trying to decide a name for the park's monorail, now known as Wgasa. Apparently, after they had been at it for days one of the engineers coworkers said "Who gives a shit anyway?" :D The story has no official evidence to back it up, but Snopes still believes it to be true.
So I say honor that Faget and give this device a proper name.
Futile attempts go exit there?
Finally a great ejection technology?
Faget's automatic gravity enhancing technique?
Fuckers are gonna egress tonight!
Discuss.
Please, do not call it Orion unless it has small nukes coming out it's ass. Confuses this old timer, it does, yes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
TC - My Photos..
Jettison + primary escape stage + jettison stage + deploy nose cone parachutes + jettison nosecone + deploy primary parachute primers + deploy primary chutes
Failure of any of those steps results in loss of crew.
Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Though any of the steps can go wrong, the likelihood of each going wrong also matters. I don't know the record of failed separations and parachute deployments well enough to really say, but both technologies pre-date manned space flight, and have been continuously necessary, so they might be down pat. If there's a very low rate for either or both, it might be safer than a system with fewer stages but more inherent danger for the crew. Depending on the odds, I might prefer five low-risk threats to three moderate-risk threats.
And, asking from near-complete ignorance: would the failure of the fairing to separate be fatal to the crew? It will be hot, but it seems to me that if it weren't well thermally-isolated from the capsule, they'd be in trouble to begin-with...but maybe it's only insulated well enough to keep them safer from it until expected separation, and much longer than that would be pushing it....
This system appears to be in need of simplification.
Soviets did it, and used it successfully since 1960s.
I agree with others here that the MLAS appears to be overly
complex. Too many things need to happen. I prefer the "KISS"
philosophy.
As a backup system this is good.
I liked the earlier Apollo escape system. Fire rockets, drop the
rockets, deploy parachute. They did the same type tests viewable
in "The Mighty Saturns" (see web link below). However This
system might not be practical with the larger and heavier module
being used today.
"The Mighty Saturns" Spacecraft Films
http://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Saturns-Saturn-Extended-Collectors/dp/B0001NBM5I
Max Faggot writes itself!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I just watched the video - and while it definitely is a cool concept, what immediately came
to mind is the increased complexity of the system
I guess the question is, what does the complexity buy them? Complexity for complexities sake is foolish, for sure, but if they get something useful out of the complexity,then it might be worth it. I wonder what the gain is they perceive to be getting, and how much its worth relative to the complexity.
This is my sig.
Man, I swear I'm looking at the cockpit module from an Eagle. BTW, what's Catherine Schell up to these days?
Way too complicated, if everything is expected to work perfectly in an emergency, where things like 'unknown error' are bound to occur.
Although I agree with many of the posts about the process being a tad complicated, if you watch the video, that looks like one hell of a ride.
This system is only as complex as necessary. If it could be simplified, it would. Do you have any idea of how recovery of spacecraft components works, such as recovery of the solid rocket motors? The first parachutes, the small ones, help to slow down the capsule. These parachutes can withstand a certain amount of load. Do you know what dynamic pressure is and how it drives the aero forces in atmo? The next batch of parachutes can withstand another set of forces, and finally the huge babies are released when the dynamic pressure is just right and those 'chutes will bring the capsule in for a landing.
They don't have all those 'chutes just for the fun of it. The budget is just too tight to do crap like that.
First stage recovery has more than 1 set of 'chutes as well.
Doh, Typo in my main response title. It should say "Complex, Yes. Overly-Complex, No." Sorry.