{"id":12857,"date":"2019-11-04T18:53:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T10:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/boeing-tests-crew-capsule-escape-system\/"},"modified":"2019-11-04T18:53:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T10:53:02","slug":"boeing-tests-crew-capsule-escape-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/boeing-tests-crew-capsule-escape-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Boeing tests crew capsule escape system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1NLQ4bO-f58?start=1491\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, New Mexico \u2014 A Boeing Starliner crew capsule fired off a stand early Monday at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on a mile-high test flight to validate the spacecraft\u2019s emergency escape thrusters.<\/p>\n<p>Only two of the ship\u2019s three main parachutes deployed on descent, but Boeing officials do not expect any impacts on the planned launch of an unpiloted Starliner demonstration mission to the International Space Station in December.<\/p>\n<p>The capsule did not fly with any astronauts Monday when it launched off a pad at White Sands on a fast-paced test flight, which lasted around 78 seconds from liftoff through landing.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot happened during the flight, called a pad abort test, exercising the Starliner spacecraft\u2019s abort engines, control thrusters, flight software, jettison mechanisms and parachutes.<\/p>\n<p>The 16.5-foot-tall (5-meter) capsule propelled itself off its test stand at 7:15 a.m. MST (9:15 a.m. EST; 1415 GMT) Monday. The Starliner used the same launch pad originally built for a pad abort test of NASA\u2019s Orion crew capsule in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Other than the parachute deployment failure, everything appeared to work as designed on Monday\u2019s pad abort test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s designed to operate with two chutes, and operate well,\u201d said Chris Ferguson, a Boeing test pilot and astronaut who will fly on the Starliner\u2019s first crewed space mission next year. \u201cEverything landed well, all the airbags functioned properly. I was just super-jazzed that we got to where we were.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement after Monday\u2019s test, Boeing said engineers will review data from Monday\u2019s pad abort test to \u201cdetermine how all of the systems performed, including the parachute deployment sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s too early to determine why all three main parachutes did not deploy, however, having two of three deploy successfully is acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety,\u201d Boeing said in a statement. \u201cAt this time we don\u2019t expect any impact to our scheduled Dec. 17 Orbital Flight Test. Going forward, we will do everything needed to ensure safe orbital flights with crew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F707861677&amp;show_artwork=true&amp;maxwidth=678&amp;maxheight=1000&amp;dnt=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>During a crewed launch, emergency escape engines on the base of the Starliner\u2019s service module would propel the spacecraft off the top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in the event of a failure on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The pad abort test Monday proved the Starliner\u2019s escape system is up to the challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a system we hope to never use, but it\u2019s a system that we have to have so that we can have the ability to abort any time on the way up, whether we\u2019re on the pad all the way to aborting to orbit,\u201d said Mike Fincke, a veteran NASA astronaut who will join Ferguson on the Starliner\u2019s Crew Flight Test. \u201cAnd today we saw a successful test, where we saw that the our revolutionary pusher abort system could pull us away from a launch vehicle that was in trouble and get us a mile up and a mile across away to safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>First-time space flier Nicole Mann, a U.S. Marine Corps test pilot, will join Ferguson and Fincke on the Crew Flight Test to the space station. The astronauts are expected to live and work aboard the orbiting research complex for up to six months.<\/p>\n<p>Boeing is developing the Starliner spacecraft under a $4.2 billion contract with NASA. The space agency also awarded a $2.6 billion contract to SpaceX for development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, giving NASA two new commercial crew capsules to fly astronauts to the space station, ending U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles for the job.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41556\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41556\" style=\"width: 2559px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41556\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/EIiU1jtXUAIAkk-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2559\" height=\"1770\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/EIiU1jtXUAIAkk-2.jpeg 2559w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/EIiU1jtXUAIAkk-2-300x208.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/EIiU1jtXUAIAkk-2-768x531.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/EIiU1jtXUAIAkk-2-678x469.jpeg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2559px) 100vw, 2559px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41556\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Starliner crew module descends under two parachutes. Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Monday\u2019s pad abort test at White Sands went by quickly, with a few flashes and bangs before two of the three main parachutes opened and six airbags inflated to bring the capsule gently back to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile it was unintentional, we demonstrated that you can safely land with two parachutes, so I look at that as a plus,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly going to look at what happened to the third (parachute).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParachutes are obviously a very important element in all of this, and there\u2019s a fair amount of concern that\u2019s arisen lately over parachutes, not just in our program but across all human spaceflight programs,\u201d Ferguson said in an interview with Spaceflight Now after Monday\u2019s pad abort test. \u201cEven on Mars, you\u2019ve seen they\u2019ve had some problems with ExoMars and their parachutes. So we\u2019ll take a very good look at this. We\u2019ll make sure that we understand what the root cause was, and make sure that we\u2019ve adequately mitigated whatever caused it before we take humans on-board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An early assessment of video imagery and data from Monday\u2019s test flight suggests the third main parachute never deployed, Boeing officials said. Engineers will inspect the recovered crew module to search for the cause of the parachute issue.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/707858476&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of the folks who have the opportunity to go back and review it say that the pilot chute did come out, but then we don\u2019t know what happened after that,\u201d Ferguson told Spaceflight Now. \u201cThe pilot chute is designed to pull the main chute out, and we confirmed that the pilot chute came out, which means that the mortar that fires the pilot chute functioned properly, but what happened beyond that, it\u2019s too early to speculate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ferguson reiterated the official Boeing statement suggesting the company expects the parachute issue to have no impact on the Dec. 17 launch date for the Starliner\u2019s first test flight in space.<\/p>\n<p>He said there are \u201csubtle differences\u201d in the parachute system between the pad abort test vehicle, which is not intended to fly in space, and the next two Starliner spaceships. The differences \u201cwould enable us to confidently go into OFT without having to sort of retract and go and fix a problem that we observed,\u201d Ferguson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut again, we have to wait for the \u2026 investigation to sort of play out and make sure we understood what the root cause of it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_40450\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40450\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-40450\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc-678x509.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc-326x245.jpeg 326w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/ECh6FNoW4AUEuwc-80x60.jpeg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-40450\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson (center) tweeted this picture with NASA crewmates Nicole Mann (left) and Mike Fincke. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a bad day at work when training for a #Starliner spaceflight,\u201d Ferguson tweeted Aug. 21. Credit: Boeing via Chris Ferguson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although the pad abort test capsule lacked some crew systems, such as cockpit displays, the spacecraft tested Monday is largely the same as the two reusable space-rated capsules under construction at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a full-up Starliner,\u201d said Alicia Evans, Boeing\u2019s pad abort test flight director, in a NASA podcast last week. \u201cIt\u2019s been built up specifically for this test. But because we were testing the integrated system, it has all of the systems required for the pad-abort test, and it\u2019s full-up avionics capability, propulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the start of Monday\u2019s test flight, a command triggered specially-designed valves to quickly open inside the Starliner\u2019s service module, and a high-pressure mix of liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants rushed into four launch abort engines, or LAEs. The chemical propellants automatically combusted when mixed together, generating 40,000 pounds of thrust from each of the Aerojet Rocketdyne-made engines.<\/p>\n<p>The engines, coupled with thrust from 12 smaller orbital maneuvering and attitude control rockets, or OMACs, pushed the Starliner vehicle off the ground with nearly 180,000 pounds of thrust. The capsule was expected to experience a sustained force of 5 Gs for five seconds while the launch abort engines fired, the same force astronauts would be under during a real abort off the launch pad.<\/p>\n<p>Before Monday\u2019s test, the Starliner capsule was mounted on top of the same type of adapter that will connect the real spacecraft to the top of ULA\u2019s Atlas 5 rocket. When the craft ignited its four launch abort engines, vent doors on the adapter were designed to open, preventing an over-pressure event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the launch pad, you have the rocket standing next to its gantry,\u201d Evans said. \u201cYou have a launch vehicle adapter, which is structural hardware that adapts the launch vehicle to the Starliner. So that\u2019s how we interface to it. Then you have the Starliner sitting on top of the rocket. And we have a service module as well as a crew module, which is the (combined) Starliner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring an abort, if there was to be an accident with the rocket and we needed to save the crew, what would happen is we have four large launch abort engines that fire in conjunction with several more smaller thrusters, called our orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters,\u201d Evans said. \u201cAnd that combined collection of thrusters lifts the Starliner away from the rocket and outside of any debris or blast zone that might be created by a rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41557\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41557\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41557\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_6282-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"553\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_6282-copy.jpg 900w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_6282-copy-300x184.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_6282-copy-768x472.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_6282-copy-678x417.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41557\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Four launch abort engines ignited to push the Starliner spacecraft off its test stand at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During Monday\u2019s test, the abort engines were to fire for 5.1 seconds, propelling the Starliner from zero to some 650 mph.<\/p>\n<p>Then thrusters pulsed to flip the spacecraft around and fly tail first on an arc that was expected to take the vehicle to a maximum altitude of approximately 4,426 feet (1,349 meters) above ground level around 18.6 seconds after takeoff.<\/p>\n<p>The thrusters stopped firing 17 seconds after takeoff, and a series of pilot, drogue and main parachutes began deploying at about T+plus 20 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>The craft jettisoned its service module at T+plus 34 seconds to fall to the ground. The crew module then released its base heat shield, then inflated airbags to cushion the capsule\u2019s landing at White Sands.<\/p>\n<p>On an actual space mission, the Starliner\u2019s service module will separate from the crew module in space, then burn up during re-entry into the atmosphere. Engineers were eager to capture video tracking of the jettison system\u2019s function during the pad abort test, along with observations of the heat shield separation events.<\/p>\n<p>Residual propellant inside the service module, which contains all the engines used for the abort test, ignited with a flash upon impact. The crew module descended to its airbag-cushioned landing nearby.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX completed the pad abort test for its Crew Dragon spacecraft at Cape Canaveral in 2015, and plans an in-flight abort test later this year at the Kennedy Space Center to verity the capsule\u2019s ability to fire off a Falcon 9 rocket after liftoff. Boeing plans to bypass such an in-flight abort demonstration.<\/p>\n<p>Other U.S. space capsules, such as the Apollo command module, the Orion crew vehicle, and SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon, are designed to splash down in the sea under parachutes. The Starliner, like Russia\u2019s Soyuz spacecraft, will come back to Earth and touch down on land.<\/p>\n<p>Under the guidelines of the commercial crew contracts, NASA gave Boeing and SpaceX the option to decide whether or not to conduct an in-flight abort test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoeing is not going to do an in-flight abort test,\u201d said Jon Cowart, deputy manager of the mission management office for NASA\u2019s commercial crew program, before the pad abort test. \u201cThey\u2019re just going to do the ground one. They think that they can get enough data and then extrapolate that out, with good analytical techniques that we\u2019ve endorsed. They will go and do it in that particular way, versus SpaceX, which is going to do both.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew about this up front, both Boeing and SpaceX, when they proposed their contracts to us and said, \u2018This is how we\u2019re going to get to real flights,&#8217;\u201d Cowart said last week in a NASA podcast. \u201cWe understood exactly, and we bought into it. We think, and we agree with them, that we can get all they need from a pad-abort test.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kathy Lueders, who manages the commercial crew program at NASA, last week called the Boeing pad abort \u201ca huge test for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, it\u2019s going to be important for us to understand how the separation works for the CM and SM (crew module and service module), checking out the chutes, making sure that the predictions are lined up right for us,\u201d Lueders said last week during a presentation to the NASA Advisory Council\u2019s human exploration and operations committee.<\/p>\n<p>Boeing is in the final stages of assembling and testing two space-ready Starliner vehicles inside a former space shuttle hangar at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>The first of the capsules is scheduled to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket as soon as Dec. 17 from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a week-long unpiloted test flight to the space station. That mission, called the Orbital Test Flight, will not have an active abort system, but Lueders said NASA wants to see how the Starliner performs on the abort test before going ahead with the OFT mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOFT&nbsp;does not have the abort system on it because it\u2019s an uncrewed mission, but obviously the way the system separates and everything else will reflect on our OFT progress, so it\u2019s critical for us to get this test going and that we understand it prior to us doing rollout of the spacecraft (for OFT),\u201d Lueders said last week, referencing the pad abort test.<\/p>\n<p>The Starliner\u2019s Crew Flight Test to the space station is scheduled to follow some time in the first half of 2020, with Ferguson, Fincke and Mann on-board.<\/p>\n<p>While final preparations for the pad abort test were underway in New Mexico, Boeing technicians at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida were readying the first space-ready Starliner spacecraft for fueling. Later this month, it will be installed on top of the Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral for final integrated checkouts and a full countdown rehearsal ahead of its scheduled liftoff in mid-December.<\/p>\n<p>The commercial crew program is a new paradigm for NASA. Boeing and SpaceX are in charge, but because NASA is the only customer for the new spaceships so far, the government still has a big say in how the contractors run the program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey own the flight tests,\u201d Cowart said. \u201cEven when they start flying up in the space station, they own the spaceship, they own the rocket. But these particular tests \u2014 they own them, which means we will consult with them, but in the end, they are the ones who own the tests and the results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s part of their certification,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to bring the data from those tests to us before they can go fly our astronauts on-board. And we\u2019ve got to say that, \u2018Yeah, you\u2019ve got the right amount of data and that the data is good and that the vehicle will perform correctly.\u2019 But \u2026 this is the thing that\u2019s kind of different from the way NASA has done business in the past. We don\u2019t own the rocket. We don\u2019t own the spaceship \u2026 It\u2019s something more than consulting and something less than owning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, New Mexico \u2014 A Boeing Starliner crew capsule fired off a stand early Monday at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on a mile-high test flight to validate the spacecraft\u2019s emergency escape thrusters. Only two of the ship\u2019s three main parachutes deployed on descent, but Boeing officials do not expect [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[864,670,524,291,1565,2459,1545,190],"class_list":["post-12857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerojet-rocketdyne","tag-boeing","tag-commercial-crew","tag-commercial-space","tag-cst-100","tag-cst-100-pad-abort-test","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}