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Flying the Shuttle - Abort Procedures Overview: Difference between revisions
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Flying the Shuttle - Abort Procedures Overview (view source)
Revision as of 06:01, 8 September 2015
, 8 September 2015→What are we trying to do?
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Abort procedures are designed to manage the loss of a single or more engines during ascent. There are two different classes of procedures - performance aborts and contingency aborts. Performance aborts aim to bring the orbiter safely down onto a runway, i.e. they contain a focus on trajectory management and ranging. Contingency aborts aim to bring the orbiter in such a state that the crew can bail out before a crash landing and in general just focus on making the entry back into the atmosphere survivable. | Abort procedures are designed to manage the loss of a single or more engines during ascent. There are two different classes of procedures - performance aborts and contingency aborts. Performance aborts aim to bring the orbiter safely down onto a runway, i.e. they contain a focus on trajectory management and ranging. Contingency aborts aim to bring the orbiter in such a state that the crew can bail out before a crash landing and in general just focus on making the entry back into the atmosphere survivable. | ||
== Launchpad abort == | |||
The simplest case of an abort procedure is on the launchpad. After the three main engines receive the ignition command, there is an about three second delay till the ignition command to the SRBs is given. If any of the main engines did not reach at least 90% of rated power during that time, the ignition command to the SRBs is not given and all the main engines are commanded off. Since the thrust of the SSMEs is not sufficient to actually lift the stack of the pad without the SRBs, the Shuttle rocks a bit as a result, but never leaves the pad. After a launchpad abort, the crew leaves the vehicle and the launch is postponed. | |||
In FG, the launchpad abort will typically happen for one of the following reasons: | |||
* the condition of an engine is set to damaged, preventing it from reaching sufficient thrust | |||
* an APU/hydraulics system was not started properly (or is damaged), causing the engine to be unable to throttle | |||
* the throttle lever was not moved to 'full open' position during the ignition procedure | |||
Just as in real life, you have to get out of FG and re-try another time. | |||
== Further reading == | == Further reading == | ||
[http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/events/aborts/ NASA human spaceflight page on abort modes] | [http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/events/aborts/ NASA human spaceflight page on abort modes] | ||