The Week in SpaceOctober 4-10, 2010
Alternate Escape Route NASA’s Constellation Program is developing an astronaut escape system for its Orion spacecraft, which will eventually carry astronauts to the ISS and the Moon. In the event of an emergency early in the flight, the Orion capsule will be pulled away from its Ares launch vehicle by a single solid-fuel rocket mounted above it on a tower, similar to the launch escape systems of Mercury and Apollo spacecraft. In a parallel effort, however, another NASA team has demonstrated an alternate method of achieving the same type of rescue. The Max Launch Abort System (named after Max Faget, who designed Mercury’s escape tower) pushes the capsule to safety by firing four solid-fuel rockets that are built into the fairing that contains the capsule. MLAS was tested successfully in July 2009. Image credit: NASA Weekly CalendarOctober 4-10, 2010Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
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