Having achieved lift-off, the next hazardous phase of the mission is getting from the pad and safely into orbit while riding a potential explosive rocket. In addressing this challenge the designers of manned spacecraft have evolved two main systems of crew evacuations during ascent: by means either of an escape tower or ejection seats. In addition, there are a number of flight profiles developed in the event of an erroneous launch profile that does not require the crew to be evacuated from the vehicle but to “fly” a trajectory that hopefully will ensure either their safe return to Earth or to orbit.
Launch escape, 1: Escape towers
2009-01-01
72 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
AIAA | 1963
|Engineering Index Backfile | 1963
|NTRS | 1963
|NTRS | 1964
|Launch escape, 2: Ejection seats
Springer Verlag | 2009