Watch as NASA’s Artemis 1 launch termination system tears apart in space
Rage against the dying of the light in this new video.
of NASA Orion spacecraft the cockpit glows pink from the glow of the Launch Interruption System (LAS) turret, breaking away from Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and spacecraft stack. All this happened according to plan during the epic launch of Artemis 1 mission to moon November 16.
The movie moment that looks like a scene from “Interstellar” or “star Wars,” shows the LAS flying from the cockpit in view of a dummy astronaut it’s testing for radiation and other space hazards before humans board.
Lockheed Martin, which built the Orion spacecraft, shared the view from the cockpit on Twitter (opens in new tab) on Friday (Dec. 1), anticipating what the astronauts will see with their own eyes, starting with this Artemis 2The expected trip around the Moon in 2024. The Moon Landing Mission Artemis 3 will follow immediately after 2025 with more Artemis program missions in development.
In pictures: Artemis 1 launch: Incredible views of NASA’s rocket’s debut to the moon
The SLS Launch Abort System generates enough thrust to lift 26 elephants off the ground, according to NASA statistics (opens in new tab). That’s more power than five F-22s have available.
NASA’s version of “The power‘ is needed to quickly and safely extract astronauts from the SLS rocket in the event of an emergency. However, if the launch takes the crew into space without incident, the LAS turret is detached in space to reduce the mass of the capsule before its journey to the Moon.
An epic video of the entirety of Artemis 1 takes the audience on a journey with the spacecraft around the Moon and back to Earth, providing incredible live views of lunar surface and our distant planet that left NASA engineers “giddy” with joy.
Orion is expected to land on Dec. 11, having followed in the footsteps of generations of missions featuring its own abort systems.
Connected: The 25 scariest moments of spaceflight show dangers in and out of orbit
Most manned space systems have been equipped with launch abort ejection seats or turrets throughout their history, with the exception of recent Space Shuttle missions, which have instead had mission abort options with the crew remaining in the vehicle .
Perhaps the most dramatic real-life use of an abort using an emergency launch tower was the launch of the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-10-1 on September 26, 1983. Russian space journalist Anatoly Zak says the system saved the life of the launch crew like that pulled them (opens in new tab) from an exploding rocket, still on the launch pad.
The the last crew abort on October 11, 2018, during the Soyuz MS-10 mission to the International Space Station, it did not use the escape tower because it had already been ejected, but the crew used alternate interrupt mode to return to earth quickly and safely. (You can hear the outage as it happened in the video above.)
Private space providers have their own escape systems on their rockets, as demonstrated in a dramatic event Blue Origin without crew failed to start from New Shepard system on September 12, 2022. The emergency exit system pull the capsule safely from the booster, which was probably destroyed during the launch. Blue Origin is investigating the cause and plans to launch humans into space again no earlier than 2023, after they have completed six manned missions without incident.
Elizabeth Howell co-authored “Why am I taller? (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
#Watch #NASAs #Artemis #launch #termination #system #tears #space
