NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Orion Launch Abort System Attitude Control Motor Test-fired

NASA, Alliant Techsystems and Lockheed Martin performed a ground test of a full-scale attitude control motor for the launch abort system of the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Image Credit: ATK

NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle marked a major milestone with a ground test of the full-scale attitude control motor for the vehicle’s launch abort system. The test performed at Alliant Techsystems’ facility in Elkton, Md., was the sixth in a series of ground tests of Orion’s attitude control motor system, which is charged with keeping the crew module on a controlled flight path after it jettisons, steering it away from the Ares rocket in the event of an emergency.

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Artist’s concept of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle in lunar orbit. Image Credit: NASA

America will send a new generation of explorers to the moon aboard NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle. Making its first flights to the International Space Station early in the next decade, Orion is part of the Constellation Program to send human explorers back to the moon, and then onward to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.