NASA launches new MLAS crew escape system

July 8, 10:59 AMDC Space News ExaminerKeith Stein

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Photo: NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has successfully demonstrated an alternate system for future astronauts to escape their launch vehicle. A simulated launch of the Max Launch Abort System, or MLAS, took place Wednesday morning at 6:26 a.m. EDT at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

The unmanned launch tested an alternate concept for safely propelling a future spacecraft and its crew away from a problem on the launch pad or during ascent. The MLAS consists of four solid rocket abort motors inside a bullet-shaped composite fairing attached to a full-scale mockup of the crew module.

The 33-foot-high MLAS vehicle was launched to an altitude of approximately one mile to simulate an emergency on the launch pad. The flight demonstration began after the four solid rocket motors burned out. The crew module mockup separated from the launch vehicle at approximately seven seconds into the flight and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.

The test demonstrated a number of things: the unpowered flight of the MLAS along a stable trajectory; reorientation and stabilization of the MLAS; separation of the crew module simulator from the abort motors; and stabilization and parachute recovery of the crew module simulator.

An important objective of the test was to provide the workforce of NASA's Engineering and Safety Center, or NESC, with experience in flight-testing a spacecraft concept. NESC leads the project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The NESC is an independently funded NASA program that draws on technical experts from across all NASA centers to provide objective engineering and safety assessments of critical, high-risk projects. NESC partners in the MLAS effort include Northrop Grumman Corp.

Data from Wednesday's MLAS pad abort test could help NASA in several ways. MLAS is the first demonstration of a passively stabilized launch abort system on a vehicle in this size and weight class. It is the first attempt to acquire full-scale aero-acoustic data -- the measurement of high loads on a vehicle moving through the atmosphere at high velocity -- from a faired capsule in flight. The test is also the first to demonstrate full-scale fairing and crew module separation and collect associated aerodynamic and orientation data.

MLAS is named after Maxime (Max) Faget, a Mercury-era pioneer. Faget was the designer of the Project Mercury capsule and holder of the patent for the "Aerial Capsule Emergency Separation Device," which is commonly known as the escape tower.