NASA is testing a shock absorber system for use on the next-generation U.S. spacecraft, Orion, at the NASA Langley Research Center, Va.
Shock absorbers are needed because Orion will be a space capsule, like the old Mercury and Apollo spacecraft, coming down to Earth hanging from parachutes, instead of gliding back to land smoothly on a runway like the existing, soon-to-retire space shuttles.
At NASA Langley, the space agency has begun testing Orion capabilities to take the impact of touchdown by dropping a mockup of the 15-foot-diameter Orion space capsule from a 240-foot-tall steel structure called the gantry.
As well, an Orion mockup recently began splashdown testing in waters near Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Earlier, this mockup was displayed in Washington, D.C., outside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, March 30, 2009.)
If glitches arise at touchdown, a rough space capsule touchdown can injure space travelers returning to Earth, as shown recently when two consecutive Russian Soyuz space vehicle landings were violent affairs that left crew members inside the Soyuzes suffering back injuries. Experts in Moscow think they solved the problem, pointing the blame at a fairing that each time failed to separate fully before touchdown.
Of course, the Soyuz touches down on land, while an Orion splashdown at sea could be much kinder and gentler on the returning crew.
Orion will take astronauts to the International Space Station beginning in 2015 or 2016, and then to the moon in 2020 to 2023, and eventually to more distant parts of the solar system such as Mars. (Please see full story on timing of these events in this issue.)
The shock absorber tests at NASA Langley will evaluate the crew module energy absorbing seat system that will protect the crew under a range of landing conditions after returning from a mission to the space station or the moon.
During this phase of testing, engineers will use a 20,000-pound apparatus called the Crew Impact Attenuation System Test Article. Designed and fabricated at Langley, the test article represents the Orion crew module seat pallet that will accommodate between four and six astronauts. Energy absorbing struts attached to the seat pallet and connected to the crew module structure will reduce loads felt by the crew during landing.
Engineers are performing 10 vertical drop tests at the Landing and Impact Research Facility, or gantry.
The test article will be dropped vertically from as high as 18 feet (roughly the height of a two-story flat-roofed house) onto crushable honeycomb material, which is sized to represent a broad range of landing conditions Orion could face.
“The Crew Impact Attenuation System Testing is critical to the safety of future Orion crew members,” said Keith Johnson, aerospace engineer at NASA Langley. “When Orion splashes down into the ocean, this system will reduce loads on the astronauts and protect them from injury.”
System tests with the initial energy absorbing strut concept will be conducted through June. Additional tests will be conducted later to improve overall system performance. Future testing will include alternate energy absorbing designs, flight-like crew seats and instrumented crash test dummies.