Orion Capsule Testing

[Fred Ley]

For those of you that have an interest in manned space flight, there appeared a news article in the Antelope Valley Press, our local newspaper back in Lancaster, on October 31, 2008, about the Orion capsule. It is undergoing certain evaluative testing at the NASA Dryden center at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California.

 

NASA Dryden has a web site located at...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/home/index.html

 

Here is the article for those who may find it to be of interest...

 

 

ROAD TEST - The Orion crew module, which eventually will carry six astronauts to the International Space Station by no later than 2014, is being tested at NASA/Dryden at Edwards Air Force Base. Similar to the Apollo capsule, the Orion is 16 feet in diameter and will parachute to earth.

RON SIDDLE/Valley Press

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDWARDS AFB - A large, rounded spacecraft stands in the middle of a hangar, balanced atop a knife edge at its diameter, when someone pushes its side and very gently begins to rock it back and forth.

It may not look like high-tech aerospace testing, but it is.

 

The spacecraft in question is a replica of the planned Orion crew capsule, the nation's next-generation manned spacecraft that is intended to replace the space shuttle fleet to take astronauts to the international space station and the moon.

 

It is undergoing testing at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in preparation for flight tests of the launch abort system beginning next year.

 

The launch abort system is designed to safely pull the crew capsule away from the launch rocket during an emergency, either while on the launch pad or shortly after take-off.

 

A rocket attached to the top of the crew capsule, which itself is stacked atop the Ares I launch rocket, would fire in an emergency, pulling the capsule a mile high and a mile away in seconds.

 

The capsule would land a safe distance away, descending with the use of parachutes.

 

"That would remove the crew from any danger that would be caused by an emergency on the launch pad or in the early stages of the launch itself," said Gary Martin, Dryden's project manager for the Orion Abort Flight Test.

 

During a successful launch, the abort system would be jettisoned once the capsule reached 200,000 feet altitude.

 

Dryden has an integral part in the flight tests of the launch abort system, which will take place at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

 

A "boilerplate" Orion capsule - one with the same dimensions and aerodynamic properties of an actual capsule but without the interior systems - is being used for the initial testing to determine how the launch abort system will function in flight.

 

Later flight tests will use prototypes of the Orion capsule.

 

During the past month, engineers at Dryden have been conducting tests on the boilerplate capsule to determine the vehicle's mass properties - issues such as weight, center of gravity and mass distribution.

 

"Our ability to control it depends on how the weight is distributed," Martin said.

 

The tests in which the capsule is rocked while balancing on a knife edge were to determine its moments of inertia - how resistant the object is to changes in rotation.

 

"It's important to know in our control systems design," said Tom Horn, chief of the aerostructures branch at Dryden.

 

The 14,000-pound capsule's motion was measured by instruments.

 

"We're looking for pretty smooth motion and the nice oscillation it would normally go through," said Cathy Bahm, Dryden's deputy project manager for crew module and integration.

 

The data collected during this month's series of tests will be used to verify the computer models engineers use to predict the capsule's performance.

 

"We can compare our measured performance to our modeled performance," Martin said.

 

If the actual data gathered matches that created in the computer model, program officials can have greater confidence in the accuracy of the models to predict performance for future test articles.

 

"These are characteristics that don't change in flight," Bahm said.

 

NASA plans four, possibly five, flight tests of the launch abort system.

 

The first, scheduled for no earlier than April, will simulate an abort on the launch pad.

 

The next two will simulate an emergency as the launch rocket ascends, with a possible third ascent abort test depending on the results of the first two.

 

These will use a smaller rocket booster - not a full-scale launch rocket - mounted beneath the test capsule to propel it

 

The final test is expected to be a second launch pad abort scenario.

 

The first flight test in the spring will use the vehicle now undergoing testing at Dryden.

 

Later tests will use additional models that more closely resemble the production version of the system, accommodating more recent changes to the design.

 

With the mass properties testing complete, the boilerplate capsule will be taken apart in order to install avionics and instrumentation for the flight testing.

 

The test capsule will be moved to the test site at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in February, where it will be joined with the launch abort system.

 

Much like the Orion capsule itself, the launch abort system counts the Apollo space program as a direct ancestor.

 

However, because the new capsule is about twice the size of the Apollo spacecraft, the weight constraints for the newer system are different, Martin said.

 

Data collected during these flight tests will be used to help certify the crew capsule for human spaceflight, he said.

 

As the Dryden team prepares the capsule for flight test, they also are preparing the mobile control room that not only will control the test flights but also will collect data from the flights and ground testing.

 

The $1.5 million mobile facility carefully is packed into a standard 53-foot trailer so it easily may be transported to the test site at White Sands Missile Range, said Sam Kim, deputy operations lead on the project.

 

Crew capsule put through paces

Dryden testing Orion replica, heir to shuttle

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press

Friday, October 31, 2008.

By ALLISON GATLIN

Valley Press Staff Writer