LIVE BLOGGING: AIAA SPACE 2008 Orion LAS programme

atttiide contro motor using new carbon-carbon, silica-carbon material, the jettison motor has for large canted and scarfed nozzles and the abort motor has reverse flow nozzle manifold and high burn rate wagon wheel propellant formulation

including the CM fairing the LAS is 50ft tall, 3ft diameetr at top and 16ft at CM end, 15,500lb for LAS for flight tets article, 16,000lb for ISS mission LAS

LAS can generate 14g of force within 2s to pull astronauts away

six tests planned, two on pad and four during ascent, AA-1 to AA-4, two at maxq and transonic but AA-3 is being dropped dut to budget problems

Orion 1 and 2 will see jettison motor tests

PA-1 to occur on 24 April 2009 from White Sand, then other tests one per year but AA-3 has been dropped

PA-1 and AA-1 were designed without the fairing adopted for the CM/LAS

For AA-1 a cover has ben ourchased wile all other tests will use the new shaped fairing

582 measurements for AA-1

During tests at 0.36s the maximmu acceleration will be 11g

Next week full scale static test of abort motor

Constellation requirement is to ensure no re-contact, so decided upon 14g acceleration

No manakins inside capsule part of LAS simulation

Orion-2 will be the first humans onboard