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  Shuttle bailout options during ascent

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Author Topic:   Shuttle bailout options during ascent
Explorer1
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Posts: 235
From: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Registered: Apr 2019

posted 02-11-2020 02:42 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Explorer1     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
After the Challenger accident, astronaut crews were issued pressure suits to allow for high altitude bailouts from the space shuttle orbiter during the ascent portion of the mission. What was the maximum altitude that the astronauts could bail out? 

Secondly, there was a special pole that was suppose to deploy outside of the shuttle in the event the crew had to bail out. Was this pole suppose to be able to be deployed in Mach 1, 2, 3 or 4 conditions?

David C
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Posts: 1144
From: Lausanne
Registered: Apr 2012

posted 02-11-2020 04:44 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for David C     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There was no thrust-on (SSMEs and/or solid rocket boosters still burning) ascent escape capability.

The LES (partial pressure suit), later ACES (full pressure suit), PPA (parachute), pyrotechnic cabin vent, side hatch jettison and egress pole systems were designed for escape during controlled subsonic gliding flight at altitudes up to 30,000 feet. This primarily catered for low energy recovery scenarios, either during an abort or re-entry from orbit.

There was no formal uncontrolled flight escape capability provision. However, in say a re-run of a Challenger type scenario, it was suggested that crew members delayed abandonment of the crew module until it was descending through 40,000 feet (when the suits would be soft) and not deploy the pole.

Jim Behling
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Posts: 1534
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010

posted 02-11-2020 01:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Jim Behling   Click Here to Email Jim Behling     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Explorer1:
...during the ascent portion of the mission.
It was for the when the orbiter was in a stable glide and not for ascent.

Only the first four missions, which had ejections seats, was there an ascent abort capability.

Rick Mulheirn
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Posts: 4253
From: England
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 02-12-2020 02:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Rick Mulheirn   Click Here to Email Rick Mulheirn     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
In one BBC tv documentary the subject of crew jettison during ascent was raised with John Young. He stated that anybody trying to do so would come out "looking like a crispy critter."

p51
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Posts: 1679
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011

posted 02-12-2020 05:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for p51   Click Here to Email p51     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There were no bailout options on ascent once they deactivated the ejection seats on Columbia. Even if you could manage to get to the hatch and blow it on ascent, and that's a might big "if," you'd be charred black from the business ends of either the SRBs or SSMEs as they went past you as you'd not get far enough away to not get cooked.

Young knew this, and he didn't even trust the ejection seats to get them clear if they had to eject on ascent from Columbia during the first few moments (though I have read he once said that if he'd known of the potential for damage to the orbiter on STS-1 from the concussive force of the SRB ignition, he might have punched out as he would have considered the Columbia to have been too risky to try re-entry).

Even if there were ways to get out of an orbiter on ascent, it reminds me of all the theories from my active duty days and being forced to ride in helicopters (let's just say I have three less landings than I should have). A crew chief once said, "It's all just stuff to keep you busy while you're waiting to die."

Skylon
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Posts: 287
From:
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 02-14-2020 07:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Skylon     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I recall in "Riding Rockets" Mike Mullane stated that during an Astronaut Office meeting following the Challenger disaster, that they were told had a similar accident occurred during one of the OFT flights it would have been survivable.

I am assuming that is dependent on when an OFT crew would have chosen to bail out. Had it been at the equivalent point that Mike Smith said "uh-oh" on the cockpit voice recorder, any crew ejecting would have been engulfed in the same explosive burn that destroyed the orbiter. Had it been after the crew module was thrown clear of the holocaust that destroyed the vehicle I am guessing that is the point a crew could have ejected and survived, had that been an option.

Jim Behling
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Posts: 1534
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010

posted 02-14-2020 07:34 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Jim Behling   Click Here to Email Jim Behling     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Skylon:
...in the same explosive burn that destroyed the orbiter
Aerodynamic forces destroyed the orbiter. The rupturing of the external tank was not an explosive event, it was a deflagration.

Robert Pearlman
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Posts: 44500
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 08-21-2020 09:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Mark Betancourt, writing for Air&Space, profiles the engineers who developed the bailout procedures after the Challenger tragedy.
The "return-to-flight" shuttle mission optimistically was set for July 1987, which gave NASA just a year to design the new escape system, test it, and integrate it into the existing orbiter. But before that could happen, someone had to figure out whether the idea of jumping out of the shuttle at high speed was even viable.

That task fell to Ricardo "Koki" Machín, a young aeronautical engineer who had just been hired at NASA out of college. He put a scale model of the shuttle, about five feet long, into a wind tunnel, and out of its tiny side hatch he pushed a tiny dummy astronaut.

"I just basically plunged the guy out the side," Machín remembers. "He went tumbling down. Sometimes he hit the back of the vehicle. Sometimes he cleared it. It was horrible looking."

Henry Heatherbank
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Posts: 258
From: Adelaide, South Australia
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 08-22-2020 01:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Henry Heatherbank     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That Air&Space article is excellent.

It makes reference to one of the emergency egress parachutes in one astronaut’s kit being accidentally deployed on orbit. Does anybody know who and which mission? And who was the crew member with jump experience who offered to swap parachute packs on descent?

dom
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Posts: 884
From:
Registered: Aug 2001

posted 08-22-2020 04:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for dom   Click Here to Email dom     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Soviets always felt escaping from a shuttle during the launch phase was possible. To test the idea they ejected several dummy cosmonauts from unmanned Progress rockets during ascent. Their Buran shuttle spacesuit was covered in a tough metallic leather outer layer to protect the pilot against the rocket exhaust. The concept seems to have worked!

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