Matthew Nelson
Northrop Grumman demonstrated a motor for the launch abort system of NASA's Orion spacecraft during a recent test at a company facility in Elkton, Md.
The motor was hot fired for 30 seconds and produced over 7K pounds of thrust through eight valves as part of a test series aimed to qualify the attitude control engine for crewed spaceflights, NASA said Tuesday.
Orion's launch abort system is designed to pull the crew module to safety within milliseconds through the use of three solid rocket motors. The agency noted an attitude control motor will help the crew navigate the Orion to any direction, while a jettison motor will ignite to detach the abort system from the spacecraft to assist in the deployment of parachutes for landing efforts.
A team of NASA engineers tested the spacecraft's crew module uprighting system off the coast of North Carolina.
Northrop developed two motors under a contract with Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin and completed a ground-firing test in late 2018 at a Promontory, Utah, facility.
The agency wants to validate the readiness of the vehicle for lunar and space missions prior to its planned deployment in 2022.
