Space safety for suborbital tourism

Commercial suborbital manned launches are a new type of business. And the engineering task of creating a suborbital apparatus can be solved in different ways. In the zero years, there was a lot of talk about SpaceShipOne / Two of the company Virgin Galactic, in which they implemented the "aircraft" approach. But the disaster of 2014rejected this project for years - the construction of the second unit ended in 2016, and it has not yet begun flight tests. Meanwhile, the Blue Origin company with the reusable New Shepard system, despite the fact that they also had accidents, became the leaders of suborbital tourism, implementing the “space” approach - its manned capsule was tested according to the standards of full-fledged spacecraft. And successful tests of the rescue system in the area of ​​maximum velocity head mean that the New Shepard is also the safest system among all competitors . And how were their spacecraft tested?

Pad abort test

Alas, Blue Origin did not promote every step, and quite a significant part of the trials was not published. The first in 2013 was a video of the rescue system tests for an accident at the start - the so-called. Pad Abort Test. In this case, the emergency rescue system (SAS) engine turns on when the capsule without a launch vehicle is at ground level.



This test is standard for spacecraft equipped with a rescue system. You can find the test video "Mercuriev" in 1960.



Photos from the Apollo test





On the Vostok and Gemini there were other rescue systems . And for the Soyuz spacecraft there are unique footage of the Soyuz T-10-1 cosmonaut rescue with a rocket engulfed in fire (from 2:50)



Modern capsules also boast beautiful video. Here is Orion.



On the manned version of the spacecraft Dragon from SpaceX, the engines were placed differently, but the principle of operation is the same - to quickly take the ship with people away from the launch vehicle in distress.

Failure of one parachute

Why did I write that a significant part of New Shepard's trials was not published? Because parachute tests begin with throwing tests, when the mockup of a capsule is dropped from an airplane or a helicopter and tries to perform a full-fledged landing. Naturally, this is not always the first time. Here, for example, the complete failure of the parachute system on the Orion tests.



But in 2013, "Orion" was able to land normally, when, on testing, it was intentionally caused by the failure of one (out of two) of a pull-out parachute and one (of three) of the main parachute.



New Shepard must have been throwing too. But this summer, Blue Origin decided to combine the testing of the parachute system with a real launch. For the test, one (out of three) exhaust parachute and one (out of three) main parachute were blocked.



The scheme with the three main parachutes is good because it not only calmly experiences the failure of one parachute, but also allows it to survive if two parachutes fail. In reality, there was a case of failure of one parachute on the Apollo 15, while the astronauts successfully splashed down without injury.



And on the New Shepard, which lands on land, landing softens the engine of a soft landing (as on the "Union") and crumpled damping panels.

Max Q abort test

Another standard test for a manned spacecraft is the SAS actuation in the area of ​​maximum velocity head (Max Q). The fact is that when the starting rocket accelerates, and the atmosphere overboard becomes thinner, a situation arises when the speed is already rather big, and the atmosphere is still rather dense. If we build a graph of the impact of the atmosphere on the spacecraft, then there will be a well-marked peak.



This chart is for the Space Shuttle. In order to reduce the load, he had to reduce the thrust of the main engines in the Max Q section. For the rescue system, this will be the second (except for the starting table) most difficult part - saving the people will have to overcome the maximum resistance of the atmosphere. Here is a video of the real crash of the “Mercury” unmanned capsule at 43 seconds of flight, not far from Max Q.



But the video of the Apollo test crash, when the failure of the control system of the special test rocket Little Joe II showed the successful operation of the rescue system (from 1:13)



And for the New Shepard test they decided to use a full-time rocket. She had already launched four times and landed successfully and was better than the new one for such a test - Blue Origin did not particularly believe that the rocket would survive the CAC in flight. But everything turned out as well as possible - the rescue system took the capsule to the side, and the parachutes provided a soft landing. The rocket successfully landed for the fifth time, was slightly burnt after landing, and clearly earned a place in the museum.



And once again in slow motion



If you thought that the capsule tumbles too much, I can reassure you - this is not scary and is not a sign of an accident. In simple terms, the capsule has a hard bottom, and it, like Vanka-vstanka, after turning off the engine, the CAC tries to turn around, bottom up, when it flies up, and bottom down, when it goes to the downward part of the trajectory. If you look at the SAS video of other ships above, you will see that they, too, are tumbling. Theoretically, it is possible to put a control system with powerful orientation engines on the ship to turn it astern and stop the tumbling, but there is no great need for this. A close look at the fourth flight of the New Shepard shows that there are gas engines on the ship, but for some reason they were not used in this scenario.

It is high time

According to Blue Origin's announced plans, the first manned flight of the New Shepard will take place in 2017, and they are going to start carrying tourists in 2018. Judging by the photos from the factory, Blue Origin is already assembling a manned ship with large portholes.



Bezos is not in a hurry, probably, a new rocket to replace the one that flew five times and leaves the museum at least once again flies in an unmanned version for testing. Despite the desire to run after him and push "Well, come on already, run!" The lack of haste and a large number of tests increases safety. In general, if you have an extra 100-200 thousand dollars on space tourism, I would definitely recommend New Shepard - there will be the greatest chances to see the Earth from a height of 100 km, feel a few minutes of weightlessness and go back alive. From an economic point of view, suborbital tourism is a new type of business, and it bears inevitable risks - it is not known how many people will be willing to buy a ticket, what price of the flight will be optimal, and how it will be related to the cost of launch. But the news is waiting for us definitely interesting.