NASA Conducts Successful PAD Abort Demonstration

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington              November 6, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-1979)

Kelly Humphries
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

RELEASE: 03-359

NASA CONDUCTS SUCCESSFUL PAD ABORT DEMONSTRATION 

     A launch pad abort test vehicle, being designed in 
support of NASA's Orbital Space Plane (OSP) program, proved 
stable in wind tunnel tests completed this month. The 
successful tests set the stage for engine test firings and 
parachute drop tests later this year.

The Pad Abort Demonstration (PAD) Project is designed to 
demonstrate a crew rescue capability important to future space 
transportation systems. The PAD will be a full-scale, reusable 
system incorporating crew escape and survival systems, 
subsystems and components using proven technologies to help 
NASA achieve its goals of establishing safe, reliable and 
affordable access to space.

The PAD vehicle, being designed by Lockheed Martin, 
demonstrated the stability and maneuverability under simulated 
conditions approximating escape from a catastrophic launch 
vehicle failure. The tests were conducted in September and 
October at Lockheed Martin's High Speed Wind Tunnel in Grand 
Prairie, Texas.

Maintaining stability, without a complex attitude control 
system, will ensure a safe transition to recovery under a 
parachute cluster. The PAD flight profile consists of a 
powered phase lasting five seconds, reaching six to eight 
times the force of normal gravity and simulating separation 
from the launch system after a pad mishap. The powered phase 
is followed by an unpowered glide from Mach 0.9 (660 mph) down 
to Mach 0.3 (220 mph), when the parachute system deploys.

"These wind tunnel tests are an important success on the way 
to developing a safe and effective crew escape system," said 
Chuck Shaw, PAD Project Manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center 
(JSC), Houston. "The tests follow September's completion of the 
PAD Preliminary Design Review, pave the way for initial 
testing of the vehicle's engine in November and a first set of 
parachute drop tests in December," he said.

NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin in November 2002 to 
design and build a crew escape and survivability system 
demonstrator and to establish a flexible test bed for use in 
support of the OSP. The PAD Project is a pathfinder for 
integrating a crew escape capability into spacecraft design, 
something that has not been done since the Apollo program.

For the initial flight test in mid-2005, the PAD will consist 
of a representative crew escape module mounted on the pusher 
propulsion module. A flared structure attached to the 
propulsion module provides the necessary aerodynamic 
stability. Flight tests will use instrumented mannequins to 
measure the environments a human crew would experience.

The PAD project is managed at JSC. The OSP Program is managed 
from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The OSP program will support U.S. International Space Station 
requirements for crew rescue, crew transport, and contingency 
cargo. The vehicle will initially launch on an expendable 
launch vehicle, to provide rescue capability for no fewer than 
four Station crewmembers, as early as 2008. Crew transfer to 
and from the Space Station is planned as soon as practical but 
no later than 2012.

For more information about the program on the Internet, visit:

http://www.ospnews.com.

For information about NASA on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


-end-