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Call it the Schiaparelli sky show – and if you happen to be NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover, it’s coming to a sky near you.

On October 19^th, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars 2016 entry, descent and landing demonstrator module is set to plunge through the Martian atmosphere, descend and land on the planet’s landscape, all within six minutes.

Its descent involves use of a heatshield, parachute, thrusters and a crushable structure for the landing.

Robotic eye-witness

The information gleaned by Schiaparelli during this short period is designed to test and demonstrate technologies required to deliver a lander or rover safely onto the surface of the Red Planet.

Once released by its mothership – ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter – on October 16^th, the Schiaparelli is targeted to plop down in a relatively flat area in Meridiani Planum, close to the equator in the southern hemisphere.

This region has been imaged extensively from orbit, including by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

In position as a robotic eye-witness to the craft’s landing is the Opportunity rover.

West toward the east

The Schiaparelli Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) will enter the Martian atmosphere and be moving from the west toward the east in the sky above its landing site in Meridiani Planum.

That’s the spot where NASA’s Opportunity rover landed in early 2004 and is currently exploring Endeavour Crater in its 10th extended mission, explains astrogeologist Jim Rice, Mars Exploration Rover geology team leader and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

Remote chance

“We will attempt to image Schiaparelli as it arrives in our neck of the woods on October 19^th,” Rice told Inside Outer Space. “But if the entry and descent of the Schiaparelli EDM is nominal, the Opportunity rover will not see anything because its path will be blocked by the topography of the western rim of Endeavour crater,” he said.

“However, there is a remote chance we could see it above the crater rim if the descent trajectory is long toward the east,” Rice added. “Bottom line is that we will be giving it our best effort and, hopefully, we get lucky.”

 

Approaching surface shots

Meanwhile, as the ExoMars Schiaparelli module descends onto Mars it will capture 15 images of the approaching surface, notes ESA. Scientists have simulated the view seen from the module’s descent camera.

Those 15 black and white images snapped by a small camera named DECA — the DEscent CAmera — during Schiaparelli’s descent can be used to reconstruct the module’s trajectory and its motion, as well giving context information for the final touchdown site.

DECA will start taking images after the front-shield of Schiaparelli has been jettisoned during the journey through the Martian atmosphere to the planet’s surface. It will take the 15 images at 1.5 second intervals.

Local memory

The images will be stored in the vehicle’s local memory. To avoid electrostatic discharges affecting the instrument, there will be a delay of several minutes after Schiaparelli has landed on the surface of Mars, before the data are read out by Schiaparelli’s computer and subsequently downlinked to Earth.

DECA was designed and built by Optique et Instruments de Précision (OIP) in Belgium for ESA.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooperative project

The ExoMars effort is a cooperative project between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos.

ExoMars 2016 comprises two missions: the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, which were launched on March 14, 2016.

The follow-on ExoMars rover and surface platform is scheduled for launch in 2020.

Take a look at this simulated landing video at:

http://exploration.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=58439

Mark your calendar for the White House “Frontiers Conference” – an October 13^th event that brings together the Nation’s top innovators to discuss how new frontiers in science and technology will help improve lives and shape the future.

A featured aspect of the webcast day is “Interplanetary Frontiers” designed to reach out to the “final frontier” and the next stage of space exploration, including the journey to Mars.

Five frontiers

The unique program embraces voices from five frontiers of innovation—personal, local, national, global, and interplanetary.

From developing personalized treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer, to harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to improve lives, to sending humans to Mars, the conference will explore innovations that hold the potential to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges and keep America on the cutting edge.

Access to space

A discussion on increasing access to space is on tap with panelists including NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman, Erika Wagner from Blue Origin, and Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer.

Other space-related speakers include:

• Ellen Stofan, Chief Scientist, NASA
• Rod Roddenberry, Jr., CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment and Founder of the Roddenberry Foundation
• George Whitesides, CEO, Virgin Galactic

Other speakers will include: Moon Express; Space Systems Loral; The Tauri Group; Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Adler Planetarium; Vanderbilt University; Planet, Made in Space; Astrobotic/CMU; and University of Colorado.

WIRED up

U.S. President Obama will travel to Pittsburgh, PA, on October 13 to host the White House Frontiers Conference.

The convening will include topics inspired by the November issue of WIRED, which is guest-edited by the President on the theme of “Frontiers.” The conference will focus on building U.S. capacity in science, technology, and innovation, and the new technologies, challenges and goals that will continue to shape the 21st century and beyond.

The White House is co-hosting the Frontiers Conference with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

For more information on this webcast event, go to:

http://www.frontiersconference.org/

For specifics on the interplanetary track, go to:

http://www.frontiersconference.org/tracks/interplanetary

 

The secretive mission of the United States Air Force’s X-37B space plane has cruised by 500 days of operation in Earth orbit.

The robotic mini-space plane was sent spaceward on the program’s fourth flight on May 20, 2015, orbited by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, kicking off a mission dubbed OTV-4 (short for Orbital Test Vehicle-4).

What the winged space plane’s on-orbit duties are continue to remain a tight-lipped affair, and how long the vehicle will remain in orbit has not been detailed.

Track record

The first OTV mission began April 22, 2010, and concluded on Dec. 3, 2010, after 224 days in orbit. The second OTV mission began March 5, 2011, and concluded on June 16, 2012, after 468 days on orbit. The OTV-3 mission chalked up nearly 675 days in orbit.

There is no word on where the craft will wheel to a full-stop. In the past, all three X-37B missions ended at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, gliding to a landing strip on auto-pilot.

New landing site?

Progress has been made, however, to consolidate its space plane operations, including use of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida as a landing site for the X-37B. A former KSC space-shuttle facility known as Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-1) was converted into a structure that will enable the Air Force “to efficiently land, recover, refurbish and relaunch the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV),” according to Boeing.

The X-37B vehicle development falls under the Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems in El Segundo, California, the firm’s center for all space and experimental systems and government and commercial satellites.

The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is leading the Department of Defense’s OTV initiative, by direction of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and the Secretary of the Air Force.

Fleet size

Only two reusable X-37B vehicles have been confirmed as constituting the fleet. This current OTV-4 trek is the second flight of the second X-37B vehicle built for the Air Force by Boeing.

Looking like a miniature adaptation of NASA’s now-retired space shuttle orbiter, the reusable military space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 meters) tall, and has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 meters).

The space drone has a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed. It has a launch weight of 11,000 pounds (4,990 kilograms) and is powered on orbit gallium arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.

Onboard payloads

A few payloads onboard the OTV-4 craft have been identified.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has announced that its XR-5A Hall Thruster had completed initial on-orbit validation testing onboard the X-37B space plane.

It is also known that the vehicle carries a NASA advanced materials investigation, as well as an experimental propulsion system developed by the Air Force.

“It remains a very useful way to test out things,” Winston Beauchamp, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for Space told Inside Outer Space during last month’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) meeting in Long Beach, California.

Asked about any interest in increasing the X-37B fleet size, Beauchamp said that the number of vehicles in use is fine due to the pace of experiments it conducts.

Now in Sol 1485, NASA’s Curiosity rover recently made a drive of over 130 feet (40 meters) up the flank of Mt. Sharp on Sol 1482.

After that trek, the rover was in position to explore multiple bedrock blocks within reach of the robot’s arm for carrying out a weekend plan, reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Brush off

A smooth patch on a nearby block named “Serowe” was selected for brushing by the rover’s dust removal tool (DRT).

The Sol 1484 plan includes two dropoffs of the latest drill sample to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite. A full suite of Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images are on tap to be taken, along with a short Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement of “Tobane,” another bedrock block.

New drive on schedule

Herkenhoff notes the plan calls for APXS to be placed on Serowe for an overnight integration. Early the next morning, the robot’s Navcam was to search for clouds and dust devils, and Mastcam will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere.

Later on Sol 1485, the arm was to be stowed to allow Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam observations of Serowe and Tobane. The rover’s Right Mastcam is to acquire a mosaic of laminated bedrock dubbed “Masunga.”

Then another drive is planned, along with the usual post-drive imaging.

 

Auto-science

The Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) software is slated to be used to select a ChemCam target on Sol 1486, and Mastcam will again measure dust in the atmosphere.

Finally, Curiosity will sleep in preparation for Monday’s activities, Herkenhoff adds.

Planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

New map

A new map has been issued showing the Curiosity rover’s location for Sol 1482.

The map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1482 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars.

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up.

From Sol 1480 to Sol 1482, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 127.51 feet (38.87 meters).

Since touching down in August 2012, Curiosity has driven 8.98 miles (14.45 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

China is readying its Shenzhou-11 piloted spacecraft for a mid to late month sendoff.

The craft will dock with the recently launched Tiangong-2 space lab, and two still-unnamed male astronauts will stay in the space lab for 30 days before returning to Earth.

“This is going to provide evidence of astronauts’ long-term stay in space for the development of China’s space station in the future,” explains Lei Fanpei, chairman, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation in a recent CCTV-Plus interview.

China plans to build the world’s third “orbit-assembled” space station in the 2020s.

Booster business

After the launch of the Shenzhou-11, China will conduct the maiden flight of China’s powerful new entry in the booster business. Flight of the Long March-5 is slated for early November. It is the largest carrier rocket that the country has ever built.

“The Long March-5 has the ability of carrying 25 tons of equipment into the low Earth orbit,” Lei notes. The application of a new major structure with a five-meter-diameter and the new engine using liquid oxygen/hydrogen and liquid oxygen/kerosene propellants, the carrying capacity of the Long March-5 has been greatly improved.

“It is currently undergoing technical tests at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan. It is estimated that the rocket will be positioned onto the launch pad by the end of October. The core module of the future space station will be launched by this rocket, as well as the Chang’e-5 lunar probe. So the launch of the Long March-5 will be of great importance to China’s development of its space station and the exploration of deep space,” adds Lei.

Mars parachute test

In related news, GBTimes has reported that China recently tested an experimental supersonic, low density parachute for use in its robotic Mars exploration program.

That test involved a Tianying sounding rocket, launching the sub-scale test parachute to high altitude above Earth to simulate conditions within the thin Martian atmosphere.

According to the Finland-based GBTimes, the flight test gathered aerodynamic data useful for evaluating a full-sized parachute for Mars duty. The test was performed by the Academy of Aerospace Solid Propulsion Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation .

China is aiming to hit the Mars launch window of 2020, rocketing toward the Red Planet a combination orbiter, lander and a rover.

For a video report on China’s upcoming space agenda, go to:

http://l3-pv.news.cctvplus.com/2016/1008/8033870_Preview_1475896857154.mp4

Also, check out this CCTV video courtesy of GBTimes on the supersonic parachute test for 2021 Mars landing. Go to:

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Schiaparelli Mars lander is being readied for its plunge onto the Red Planet.

Controllers at ESA’s mission control in Darmstadt, Germany have uploaded commands that will govern the lander’s descent and touchdown on Mars.

Meanwhile, discussions are underway regarding the best seat in the house for viewing Schiaparelli’s landing – by NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover.

Two-parter

ESA’s ExoMars 2016 mission is a two-parter: The Trace Gas Orbiter has been carrying Schiaparelli since launch on March 14 of this year.

Upon arrival at Mars on October 19 — and its parent craft brakes into an elliptical orbit around Mars — Schiaparelli will test the technology needed for Europe’s ExoMars 2020 rover to land.

Taking the fall

One of the most crucial moments will be Schiaparelli’s landing, set for 14:48:11 GMT (16:48:11 CEST) on October 19.

During landing, the recently sent upload of commands include ejecting the front and back aeroshells, operating the descent sensors, deploying the braking parachute and activating three groups of hydrazine thrusters to control the lander’s touchdown speed.

Radar love

Radar will measure Schiaparelli’s height above the surface starting at about 4 miles (7 kilometers) altitude.

Above Mars, Schiaparelli will briefly hover before cutting its thrusters, leaving it to fall freely.

The targeted touchdown site is a region in Meridiani Planum – a location that is near NASA’s Opportunity rover that is already on-duty.

 

Ringside seat?

How solid of a chance is it for the NASA Opportunity rover spotting the Schiaparelli sky show?

“It is exciting to think about the possibility of seeing a visitor coming,” said Mark Lemmon on the Opportunity tactical shift rover control group. He is associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A & M University in College Station, Texas.

Lemmon told Inside Outer Space that there is a realistic possibility, but not a likelihood, of seeing part of Schiaparelli’s parachute descent – maybe one chance in seven.

Constrained downlink

“The parachute would be, at best, around pixel-sized. If there is enough residual glow in the heat shield, that could be a second pixel,” Lemmon said. “We are balancing the desire to maximize the odds of getting at least a few images of Schiaparelli with the constrained downlink we have available that sol [Martian day].”

“If we were talking about a flat plain, and without dusty season, we’d be trying to prune down our options,” Lemmon said. That is, image the entry phase, turn to image the parachute phase, maybe use multiple directions since the lander ellipse is so big – from west on a bit past north, in angle, he said.

Robot’s point of view

But the Opportunity rover is in a hole. The Schiaparelli entry is not viewable, Lemmon said. If the European probe lands in the middle of the landing ellipse, or comes in short, nothing will be viewable. If the probe goes long, to the east, it might come over the crater rim from the rover’s point of view, and also be closer to the rover.

“We are watching the horizon,” Lemmon said. “Previously, we figured about one chance in seven of having the parachute go through the frame. We’d likely point to maximize the chance of seeing anything, but there may be arguments for one part of the descent over another.”

Great bonus

Lemmon added that any sharp-shooting of an incoming Schiaparelli has to cope with the martian dust, as the sky is comparable in brightness to the parachute.

“Because of that, we think we have to use [Opportunity’s] Pancam’s higher sensitivity to small objects and its filters, rather than Navcam’s larger field of view,” Lemmon said. “We’re still collecting information about the descent expectations, weather, and local horizon, and will use all of that for our final plans on October 17 when we uplink to the rover.”

Lemmon said that the ESA Schiaparelli team has been very interested in the images. Those images would be an “extra perspective” on Schiaparelli’s position, winds, maybe heat shield deployment.

“The images are not central to what they need,” Lemmon said, “but if we get them it would be a great bonus. We have a shot at watching an incoming spacecraft from the surface of another planet…good times!”

Surface science

Once safely on the surface, the timeline will operate Schiaparelli’s science instruments for a planned two days – and possibly longer.

Sitting on Mars, a small meteorological station (DREAMS) will operate for a few days.

DREAMS is onboard to measure local weather conditions at the landing site, such as temperature, humidity, pressure, dust opacity, wind speed, and wind direction. It will also perform measurements of the electrical properties of the Martian atmosphere, the first time this has ever been done.

 

 

 

 

The Mars orbiter was built by Thales Alenia Space – France, and the builder of the Schiaparelli lander is Thales Alenia Space – Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a new video showing the Schiaparelli landing sequence, go to:

http://m.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2016/10/Schiaparelli_s_descent_to_Mars

Now in Sol 1482, the Curiosity Mars rover drove another 115 feet (35 meters) on Sol 1480, stopping at a location with a layered bedrock exposure right in front of the rover.

“So the tactical planning team decided to take advantage of the touch and go option again,” reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Layered target

The robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is taking pictures of the layered target “Cassongue” and of the rover wheels before the arm is stowed in preparation for another drive on Sol 1482.

Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam will observe bedrock targets named “Coutada,” “Cuangar,” and “Cacuso,” explains Herkenhoff, and the Right Mastcam will acquire mosaics of more distant targets dubbed “Lucusse” and “Lumeje.”

Also, the Left Mastcam will be used to image the wheels on the right side of the rover and to extend the coverage of the terrain in the direction Curiosity’s handlers plan to

drive.

 

Downlink priorities

“Because we don’t expect to receive as much data as usual in time for planning on Friday, the volume and downlink priorities of post-drive imaging data had to be carefully scrubbed,” Herkenhoff notes.

On Sol 1483, Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) software will again be used to autonomously select a target for a ChemCam observation.

 

 

In the distance: Murray Buttes

Also on tap is use of the rover’s Navcam to search for clouds. The robot’s Mastcam is scheduled to take an image of the rover deck to look for changes in the distribution of dust and other debris.

Lastly, Herkenhoff concludes, the rover’s Right Mastcam will take a look toward the east and acquire a 5-image mosaic of the Murray Buttes in the distance.

Planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

To message or not to message? That’s the question to ponder when considering the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There’s on-going discussion and debate about giving ET the “hi-sign.”

It is dubbed Messaging Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, or METI for signaling shorthand.

Douglas Vakoch, President of METI International in San Francisco, California is author of a new and enlightening bit of correspondence, “In defence of METI,” published today in the journal Nature Physics.

Closer look

“At METI International, we’re committed to taking a closer look at the assumptions that have driven the search for life beyond Earth over the past half century, as we seek innovative alternatives to traditional SETI efforts,” Vakoch told Inside Outer Space.

“Sending intentional, powerful signals to potential extraterrestrial civilizations is one of our top priorities,” he said, “but we’re also expanding methods to search for life beyond Earth, and to anticipate the variety of life that may exist in the cosmos.”

Cosmic static

Vakoch explains that SETI programs have typically focused on using a few very large telescopes.

“That makes good sense when you’re searching at radio frequencies, where you need incredible computing power to pull artificial signals out of the cosmic static…especially if you want to do a real-time follow-up of any candidate signals. It would be incredibly expensive to equip a lot of observatories with that capability,”Vakoch notes.

Optical SETI: Extend the network

But with optical SETI, Vakoch adds, Earthkind can launch powerful searches for brief laser pulses using only modest-sized telescopes, as long as they are paired with sophisticated signal processing capabilities.

“Fortunately, with a bit of innovative engineering, it costs only a few tens of thousands of dollars to add that signal processing capability to an existing optical telescope,” says Vakoch.

One of the priorities at METI International’s over the next year is to extend the network of optical SETI observatories. Doing so, builds on the accomplishments of the facilities in Panama and Michigan that the group is already working with.

 

Life as we don’t know it

“But we also need to step back and ask ourselves, “Is life as it we know it on Earth the only possibility?”

Next year, to help probe that question, METI International will host a daylong workshop called What is Life? – An Extraterrestrial Perspective. That meeting is being held at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris on March 22, 2017.

“We plan to continue these meetings in Paris every two years moving forward,” Vakoch adds. “Our first Paris meeting will bring together leading experts on subjects ranging from the origin of life to the evolution of intelligence, as we ponder the alternatives to life as we know it on Earth.”

Resources

To read the “In defence of METI” communiqué from Vakoch, here’s a link made available by the publisher at:

http://rdcu.be/kH5q

For more information on METI International, go to:

www.meti.org

Also, check out this Ideacity 2016 video presentation Calling the Cosmos at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQKd48kHArI

Now in Sol 1480, the NASA Curiosity Mars rover drove a little over 40 feet (12.5 meters) on Sol 1478, to an area with lots of nodules in the bedrock.

The rover’s tactical planning team decided to exercise the “touch and go” option, so the robot’s arm is deployed for contact science before driving away on Sol 1480.

Variety of activities

Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona notes that the scheduled plan “is packed with a variety of activities,” starting with a short Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) integration and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging of a nodule-rich target named “Oodi.”

Curiosity’s robotic arm is to be moved out of the way for Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Right Mastcam observations of Oodi and nearby bedrock targets “Calenga” and “Caconda.”

Sedimentary structures

In addition, the rover’s Right Mastcam is slated to acquire images of targets dubbed “Chitembo,” “Chingufo,” and “Chipindo” to investigate sedimentary structures in more detail, Herkenhoff adds. Also to be studied is the rock that the Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) software, selected for ChemCam chemical measurements.

Herkenhoff notes that the robot’s Mastcam is set to measure dust in the atmosphere before the next drive, followed by the usual post-drive imaging.

Overnight, the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) is on tap to analyze the Quela drill sample again, “to improve the quality of mineralogical measurements,” Herkenhoff points out.

Battery recharge

On Sol 1481, Curiosity’s Navcam will search for clouds.

AEGIS will autonomously select a target for ChemCam observations, and the results of the CheMin analysis will be read out of the instrument to the rover computer.

Finally, the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite “is to perform a maintenance activity before the rover gets some sleep and recharges her batteries in preparation for the next 2-sol plan,” Herkenhoff concludes.

Planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

Blue Origin’s planned launch has been rescheduled to Wednesday Oct. 5.  Refer to the Blue Origin Twitter, https://twitter.com/blueorigin, for more details.

 

The suborbital passenger rocket program of Blue Origin is to take a next step – a test of the New Shepard’s in-flight escape system.

Slated to take place on the anniversary of the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 satellite, the October 4^th flight of the rocket involves triggering of the vehicle’s abort system after launch.

Blue Origin says that the New Shepard rocket itself, which is reusable and will be making its 5th flight, will likely be destroyed “and its impact with the desert floor will be most impressive.”

The company’s private spaceport site is in Texas.

Dramatic ending

The Tuesday, October 4 test will be webcast on the company’s website beginning at 10:50 am ET.

“Our next flight is going to be dramatic, no matter how it ends,” says Jeff Bezos, lead rocketeer of the Blue Origin group and Amazon.com guru.

“We’ll be doing our in-flight escape test with the same reusable New Shepard booster that we’ve already flown four times,” Bezos adds.

“About 45 seconds after liftoff at about 16,000 feet, we’ll intentionally command escape,” Bezos explains. “Redundant separation systems will sever the crew capsule from the booster at the same time we ignite the escape motor.”

Escape motor

The escape motor will vector thrust to steer the capsule to the side, out of the booster’s path. The high acceleration portion of the escape lasts less than two seconds, but by then the capsule will be hundreds of feet away and diverging quickly. It will traverse twice through transonic velocities – the most difficult control region – during the acceleration burn and subsequent deceleration.

The capsule will then coast, stabilized by reaction control thrusters, until it starts descending. Its three drogue parachutes will deploy near the top of its flight path, followed shortly thereafter by main parachutes.

Unlikely survival

“It’s the first ever rocket booster to fly above the Karman line into space and then land vertically upon the Earth. And it’s done so multiple times. We’d really like to retire it after this test and put it in a museum,” Bezos explains.

 

“Sadly, that’s not likely. This test will probably destroy the booster. The booster was never designed to survive an in-flight escape,” Bezos adds.

 

 

 

 

Check out this animation of what’s to come at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5i-f-D_A-M&feature=youtu.be

To watch the October 4th test flight, go to the firm’s website at:

https://www.blueorigin.com/