Officials and media representatives watch the launch of an Orion test crew module and its launch abort system during NASA's Pad Abort 1 test on May 6 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. PA-1 was the first fully integrated flight test of the crew rescue system being developed for the Orion crew capsule. (NASA photo) NASA conducted a spectacular though brief flight test of the Orion Launch Abort System early Thursday morning at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, N.M.

The 500,000-lb. thrust abort motor rocketed the boilerplate crew module and its launch abort stack away from launch pad 32E at White Sands on time at 7 a.m. MDT, and initial indications that all systems for steering, separation, stabilization, deployment of the parachutes and landing worked perfectly.

Cheers and applause erupted in the mission control room at White Sands as the Orion test capsule, hanging from its three red-and-white main chutes, landed about 6,900 feet downrange from the launch pad about 2½ minutes after the abort motors fired.

The Orion Project office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston led the launch abort system test team. NASA's Langley Research Center designed and built the boilerplate crew module for the test, and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center prepared the crew module for integration and led the flight test vehicle integration at WSMR with Lockheed Martin Corp. of Denver, the prime contractor to NASA for Orion.

The undamaged Pad Abort-1 flight test crew module rests in the desert after a successful Pad Abort-1 flight test May 6 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. (NASA photo) › Orion Mission Page
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