The test launch of the boilerplate Max Launch Abort System for the Ares-1 rocket is now being re-set at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, VA for next week --- Wednesday, July 8 in the early morning, according to Accomack County Administrator Steve Miner. It has been delayed three previous times. See mission profile here.
The MLAS is a backup safety system for NASA's new generation of manned space vehicles and is designed to propel the crew to safety in event of a launch emergency. An alternate design to the current Orion escape system, the MLAS demonstration vehicle consists of a full-scaled composite fairing, a full-scaled crew module simulator and four solid rocket abort motors mounted in the boost skirt with motor mass simulators in the forward fairing.
During the launch, the vehicle is expected to reach an altitude of one mile in a brief flight and a full-size crew module replica will separate from the vehicle and parachute into the ocean in a simulation of an actual emergency. The vehicle, which was built at Wallops Flight Facility, is 33 feet tall and weighs 45,000 pounds.
NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. has played a major role in design and testing the the primary Orion launch abort system, designed by Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation. It will be tested at White Sands, New Mexico later this year [video]. The first test flights of the Ares-1 configuration are slated to begin at the Kennedy Space Center this summer [video 1, video 2].
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