A major milestone was reached on Monday (November 4) in space exploration: at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, NASA and Boeing performed and aced a pad abort test of the Starliner space capsule, a little over a month before the first scheduled, uncrewed test flight. The video of the test is available at the bottom of the page.
A pad abort test is a procedure meant to put through their paces the systems that should jettison the crewed capsule away from the launch pad in case of an emergency. The capsule is ejected at tremendous speeds, and then heads back to the surface of the planet supported by two parachutes.
The Starliner is one of three capsule (alongside the SpaceX Crew Dragon and NASA Orion) that are to restart sending astronauts to space from U.S. soil. It will also be capable of transporting supplies and other materials into space.
Similar in size to the Orion, the Starliner can host a crew of up to seven astronauts, or five when space is also shared with cargo. Of all these seats, some will be reserved in the mid-term future to paying astronauts on sightseeing trips to space.
The capsule has been designed to support long staysout there – in this case, up to seven months. The capsule is reusable, and has a life expectancy of ten or so missions before needing to be replaced.
Most importantly, the Starliner is partially autonomous, and it will fly itself including during rendezvous and docking operations with the space station. For the first time in the history of space exploration, future variants of it will be capable of landing on solid soil rather than on water, thanks to the use of an airbag landing system that complements the parachutes.
NASA is airing the Starliner pad abort test live starting 8:50 a.m. EST.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News