NASA’s Orion Crew Module Includes Majestic Ejection System

Giz, keep posting the space stuff. Gosh I miss Space Week.

@vSanjo: I'm sure they will be glad to be feeling anything, as major problems during a launch usually end with a boom. So here's hoping that if they ever have an issue they have enough time to eject. These guys are amazing and I've got a lot of respect for them. It takes a special size of balls to strap yourself into one of these.

Is it just me or does that thing look like a giant flying syringe?

I'm wondering what mountainous desert they expect an aborted launch to land on? If the launch failed shortly after launch, wouldn't they land in the Atlantic Ocean?

@aelver: Makes up for the fact that they used the same fwump/roar sound effect for every single action.

icelight

@T-Will: LOL.

La la la la
your rocket blew up
la la le le
you near-ly died
now-hope-the-chutes-de-ploy-prop-er-ly... YA!

la la la la
le la loo loo...

@frigg: They're working based on the assumption that if anything really bad is going to happen, it will likely involve the hundreds of thousands of pounds of solid rocket fuel in the "stick". The tower part of the ejection system is designed to be able to pull the Orion capsule away from the stick; once that happens in the first few seconds they have plenty of time (and presumably fully functional systems) to do the recovery, while the solid rocket booster is safely away blowing up, or whatever the problem was.

The landing procedure is roughly the same as that of a normal re-entry, so it may have its own backups in place. Spare parachutes, maybe?

icelight

It looks like a giant jacket button is falling on you.

On mute with "15 Step" by Radiohead playing its even cooler.

Charles Frisby

Love the music!

aelver

That clip has some pretty sweet music for abandoning a dying rocket and all :D

david77123

Does the abort module play that theme song when activated?

T-Will

is there an ejection system from the ejection system? It looks like a lot of stuff has to go right in the midst of what would be a catastrophic failure.

Wow, just wow. So awesome to see stuff like this, but I do wonder: What would it feel like inside there during this? Imagine all the jerking about?

i totally misread that header...i though it said majestic erection system...

Pretty neat stuff what NASA can do though..

between the music and the video rendering, I felt like I was watching a Veggie Tales clip....

@MatthewT: Yeah, this is not the NASA of 1969, buddy. This is the NASA that loses one billion dollar probe after another and destroyed two shuttles. They couldn't even answer the Obama people when asked what the hell it is they do. They're idiots. I don't trust them.

@Aaron Eaton: Actually, that shape-change, or variations of it, are in use on parachutes today. For example, the ballistic-recovery parachute on the Cirrus SR-22 uses a "reefing" system that allows the canopy to open part-way, then fully inflate.

The design for Ares does something similar, but using pyrotechnics to trigger the change.

@frigg: I think that most of the components of the escape system that seem complicated are part of the regular re-entry and recovery system, so it's not like the escape system itself is super-complex.

It has the escape tower (which houses the rockets and thrusters to pull the capsule away), and the shroud, but is any other component of what we saw specific to the escape system and not shared with normal re-entry?

I believe it's all pretty similar to the Apollo and Soyuz escape systems. The Soyuz system has actually been used in a real emergency (fire on the pad), and worked.

Not to be nitpicky -- but this isn't actually how the manned Orion launch escape system would work. This is a simulation of the first full-scale test of the system, which uses a small fake booster and a boilerplate capsule.

The real Orion won't be launching from White Sands. It also doesn't have airbags. The Orion capsule isn't going to be designed to land on land -- water landings only. The airbags are an addition to the test boilerplate Orion to... well, to keep it from breaking when it lands.

This test is really just to see whether all the systems work together as planned. Later tests will fine-tune the hardware, making sure that the escape motors don't pull the capsule away too fast (too much g-force on the astronauts inside) or too slow (you do kinda want to avoid the exploding or out-of-control rocket behind you...).

im loving the Disney themesong

@Julien321: Obviously it wasn't launched from Cape Canaveral. It would still go east, because it takes extra energy if you launch going west. I think it looks like a launch from White Sands, New Mexico, and a landing around El Paso, Texas.

Pete Larson

@Pete Larson: It looks like It could be White Sands they'd be launching from in the video.

Pete Larson

@The5thElephant: When your space plane can make it to ISS and the moon, I'll be very impressed, indeed.

Pete Larson

Look at all the added weight and complexity and cost. It is truly a pity that rockets sometimes blow up and astronauts die but when you climb aboard a explosively fuel rocket with a flame at the end, you are taking a risk and just have to accept that. Systems like this will only work in narrow situations, if the rocket is too low it doesn't work, if too high it doesn't work, in space it doesn't work, it is the landing mechanism so there is no backup there, it only works for the first 10-60 seconds. All other accidents aren't helped by this.

pagercam

@LastVigilante: It sure looks like they're landing just outside El Paso, Texas. Not sure if it's landing on the US or Mexico side of the border, though.
Matched it up using Google maps sattelite.
Not sure why they'd be Launching from the west coast, especially as they've done away with the Air bags you see in the animation. They were too heavy.

Pete Larson

That's not a video, that's animation.

brahmachari99

Very cool stuff, and impressive animation. But I have yet to get over the frustration that we are still sending people into space by strapping them to the top of large explosive tubes.

Are space planes really that unfeasible for NASA to be working on? There are plenty of private companies working on them (the largest being funded by the EU IIRC).

The only disadvantage would seem to be carrying capacity and I'm sure that could be eventually figured out.

The5thElephant

@Mark 2000: Wow. What a ridiculous statement.

MatthewT

@frigg: I was thinking the same thing. Especially where the main parachutes change shape 2-3 times. There's no way that would work properly.

Aaron Eaton

Strange landing since rockets launched from Cape Canaveral fly (east) over the Atlantic and not land.

Julien321

Seems complex no?

@JPSmee: It reminded me of the MS Flight Simulator X intro music.

asten77

Yeah, I'm not sure about a the two stage, multi varied shoot expansion. Seems like there are way too many chances for error. Looks cool though.

I think after a ride in that you'd be both shaken and stirred Mr Bond.

daqman

Clearly the Umbrella Corporation is behind the disaster.

Am I the only one who was reminded of Final Fantasy Tactics with this music?

Why did they score this anyways?

Are the astronauts forced to listen to that music all the way down? Or is there an option to create a custom playlist?

re-cyclist

That was surprisingly cute.

Bassem B.

vented airbags eh? That's ESA's way of doing things....

Churrito

That's a pretty impressive animation.

zacwight

@LastVigilante: Vandenberg maybe? Different launch sites offer different advantages depending on what orbit you want to reach. The Space Shuttle only launches from Cape Canaveral, but that's a cost saving measure, it wasn't the original plan. Ares 1 launches should be simpler than space shuttle launches, so it might not be as expensive to launch from the west coast.

jepzilla

@Mark 2000: Seriously, who do they think they are? Rocket scientists?

jepzilla

I have serious doubts NASA could make such a complex, multi stage system work when needed.

@Eptin: wow that was awesome. If you start it at 21 it goes nearly perfect with what happens in the video. Even makes a sound when it lands.

crsrc

@Charles Frisby: Very nice find! Start the video 21 seconds into the song.

Eptin

@Pete Larson: Ah, I get it now. The first few seconds of the video show that its a simulation of an unmanned TEST that they'll do of the system, since it isn't the whole Ares launch config on the pad (just a small test stage). Since they do all their tests in the southwest (White Sands possibly, as mentioned above), the lack of the Atlantic ocean makes sense now.