Watch NASA’s Artemis 1 launch abandonment system tear into space
Rage against the dying of the light in this new video.
from NASA Orion spacecraft the cabin glows pink from the glow of its Launch Abandonment System (LAS) turret, pulling away from the Space launch system (SLS) rocket stack and spacecraft. All this happened as planned during the epic launch of the Artemis 1 mission to the moon November 16
The movie-like moment, which looks like a scene from “Interstellar” or “War of the galaxies,” shows the LAS flying away from the cockpit in view of a dummy astronaut which is testing for radiation and other space hazards before humans get on board.
Lockheed Martin, which built the Orion spacecraft, shared the cockpit view on Twitter (opens in a new tab) Friday (Dec. 1), anticipating what the astronauts will see with their own eyes starting with Artemis 2Expected trip around the moon in 2024. Lunar landing mission Artemis 3 will follow as soon as 2025, with more Artemis program missions under construction.
In the photos: Artemis 1 Launch: Incredible Views of NASA’s Moon Rocket Debut
The SLS Launch Abort system generates enough thrust to lift 26 elephants off the ground, according to NASA statistics (opens in a new tab). That’s more power than five F-22 jets.
NASA version of ‘the strengthIt is needed to quickly and safely remove astronauts from the SLS rocket in an emergency. However, if the launch gets the crew into space without incident, the LAS tower is torn apart in space to reduce the mass of the capsule before its trip to the Moon.
Artemis 1’s epic video has kept audiences riding along with the spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth, offering incredible live views of the lunar surface i our distant planet that left NASA engineers “margit” with joy.
Orion is expected to blast off on Dec. 11, following in the footsteps of generations of missions with its own abort systems.
Related: The 25 scariest spaceflight moments show dangers in orbit and beyond
Most manned space systems have been equipped with ejection seats or launch abort towers throughout crewed history, with the exception of recent Space Shuttle missions that instead had options to ‘abortion of the mission with the crew remaining inside the vehicle.
Perhaps the most spectacular use of a real-life abort with a launch escape tower was the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-10-1 launch on September 26, 1983. Russian space journalist Anatoly Zak says that the system saved the life of the launch crew, since it drove them away (opens in a new tab) of an exploding rocket still on the launch pad.
The last manned abort on October 11, 2018 during the Soyuz MS-10 mission to the International Space Station did not use the escape tower as it had already launched, but the crew used a alternative abortion mode to return to land quickly and safely. (You can hear the abortion as it happened in the video above.)
Private space providers have their own exhaust systems on their rockets, as demonstrated during a dramatic Blue origin without crew launch error from New Shepard system on September 12, 2022. The emergency evacuation system safely removed the capsule of the propellant, which was presumably destroyed, during the launch. Blue Origin is investigating the cause and plans to launch people into space again no earlier than 2023, after completing six manned missions without incident.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why am I taller? (opens in a new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in a new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or Facebook (opens in a new tab).
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