By: Amy Johnson

Hundreds came out Thursday to celebrate their roles in making history in the New Mexico desert.

NASA Langley hosted the Orion Pad Abort-1 award ceremony at the Virginia Air and Space Center. The event was two weeks to the day after the successful flight of PA-1 at the White Sands Army Missile Range in New Mexico.

"Two weeks ago we hit a tremendous home run," said Don Reed, manager of the Orion flight test office out of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Mark Geyer, the Orion Project Manager from Johnson Space Center, spent part of Thursday congratulating workers in NASA Langley's fabrication shop for the work they did on the crew module used in the Pad Abort-1 test. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

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It took 3 1/2 years of work to make the 95-second test flight happen. Thursday's speakers made it clear that the intense and challenging effort was worth it to know that they built and tested a launch abort system that could save the lives of astronauts.

"When asked what was monumental about this test, I would say that, if we had four crew members in that crew module, they would have walked away and would fly another day," Reed said.

"In my opinion, we made history," added Mark Geyer, Orion Project Manager from Johnson Space Center.

Lesa Roe, Langley's center director, presented Director's Awards to Kevin Rivers, Langley's Launch Abort System manager; to Phil Brown, the Orion Flight Test Article project manager; and to Roger McNamara of Lockheed Martin.

Rivers, who has led the Launch Abort System team for the past year and a half, said he enjoyed being on a team that kept him "challenged." While he was honored to receive the award, he made it clear that without the superb team and the support of their families, PA-1 wouldn’t have happened.

"This team is phenomenal," said Rivers. "They developed such a complicated system in such a short amount of time. We made history."

Brown, who managed the team at Langley that fabricated the crew module that flew on PA-1, thanked the Launch Abort System team for all its hard work and noted that the Langley crew module survived quite a ride on the powerful rocket and even landed in good condition.

"What about that CM?" he asked. "It took a lickin' but kept on tickin.' "

Roe echoed Rivers' comments and thanked the families who supported the NASA and industry team members who invested so much of their lives in the project. Roe also commended the inter-agency effort.

"The test at White Sands was the culmination of four years of intensive design and development of work," Roe said. "And Langley was an integral part of this multi-center team and its tremendous success."

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