Northrop Grumman Successfully Tests Orion Spacecraft’s Launch Abort Motor

Static test qualifies crew safety launch abort motor for flight in cold conditions

PROMONTORY, Utah – Dec. 13, 2018 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) along with NASA and Lockheed Martin successfully performed a ground firing test of the abort motor for NASA’s Orion spacecraft Launch Abort System (LAS) at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah. The abort motor is a major part of the LAS, which provides an enhancement in spaceflight safety for astronauts. The completion of this milestone brings Orion one step closer to its first flight atop NASA’s Space Launch System and to enabling humans to explore the moon, Mars and other deep space destinations beyond low-Earth orbit.

Today’s test firing of the Northrop Grumman-manufactured launch abort motor in Promontory, Utah, confirmed the motor can activate within milliseconds and will perform as designed under cold temperatures.

“Our astronauts’ safety is our top priority,” said Steve Sara, director, launch abort motor program, Northrop Grumman. “We never expect the launch abort motor to be used, but just like an ejection seat in a fighter pilot's aircraft, if they need it, it needs to work every time.”

The mission for Orion’s LAS is to safely jettison the spacecraft and crew out of harm’s way in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during initial launch ascent. Today’s abort motor test, Qualification Motor-2, was the culmination of a series of component tests conducted over the past few years in preparation for qualification. Data from the test will confirm the motor can activate within milliseconds and will perform as designed under cold temperatures.

The abort motor, which stands over 17 feet tall and spans three feet in diameter, has a manifold with four exhaust nozzles. With its nozzles pointing skyward, it fired for five seconds; the exhaust plume flames reached approximately 100 feet in height. The high-impulse motor burns three times faster than a typical motor of this size, delivering the thrust needed to pull the crew module to safety. The motor achieved approximately 350,000 pounds of thrust in one eighth of a second, as expected. More analysis will be performed in the coming weeks, but all initial results indicate a successful test.

Northrop Grumman’s next major abort motor milestones include the Ascent Abort-2 Flight Test (AA-2) set to take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in 2019. Previous large-scale tests of the launch abort motor included a development motor test in 2008, a pad abort test of the complete launch abort system in 2010 and the Qualification Motor-1 static test in 2017.

For the AA-2 flight test, in addition to the launch abort motor Northrop Grumman will also provide the Abort Test Booster (ATB), which will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft and LAS to on a preplanned trajectory to obtain data to be used for LAS performance assessment. The ATB uses the same rocket motor as the first stage of a Minotaur IV rocket.

Northrop Grumman is responsible for the launch abort motor through a contract to Lockheed Martin, Orion’s prime contractor. The Orion LAS program is managed out of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Northrop Grumman produces the abort motor at its Magna, Utah facility and the attitude control motor at its Elkton, Maryland facility. The company also manufactures the composite case for the abort motor at its facility in Clearfield, Utah.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus Spacecraft Successfully Completes Rendezvous and Berthing with International Space Station

“S.S. John Young” delivers approximately 7,400 pounds of cargo to the station

Dulles, Va. – Nov. 19 2018 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC)  today announced that the “S.S. John Young” Cygnus™ spacecraft successfully completed its rendezvous and berthing maneuvers with the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this morning. The mission marks the company’s 10th successful berthing with the orbiting laboratory.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft is shown moments after capture by the International Space Station’s robotic arm. Credit: NASA TV

Cygnus launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Antares™ rocket on Nov. 17, 2018 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A on Wallops Island, Virginia. As the spacecraft moved closer to the space station over the following few days, Cygnus executed a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit. Once the spacecraft was in close range, crew members on board the space station grappled the spacecraft with the station’s robotic arm at 5:28 a.m. EST. Cygnus was then guided to its berthing port on the nadir side of the station’s Unity module and officially installed on to the space station at 7:31 a.m. EST.

“With the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station tomorrow, we stand with NASA as a proud mission partner in support of the ISS as a premier research facility in space,” said Frank Culbertson, president, space systems group, Northrop Grumman. “Our dedication of Cygnus in honor of NASA astronaut John Young is a fitting tribute to his efforts to enable future astronauts to live and work there to advance space exploration.”

Cygnus arrived at the space station with nearly 7,400 pounds (approximately 3,350 kilograms) of cargo, supplies and scientific experiments. The crew is now scheduled to open Cygnus’ hatch and make initial ingress into the cargo module to begin unloading the pressurized cargo. Cygnus will remain docked at the station for approximately two months before departing on secondary missions.

Once Cygnus is unberthed from the station, it will reposition to deploy three CubeSats via the NanoRacks External Cygnus Deployment Program from both above and below the space station. This specific satellite deployment operation marks the first dual altitude deployment for Cygnus, demonstrating the spacecraft’s capability beyond cargo delivery and removal.

The CubeSat known as MYSat-1 is among NanoRacks’ customers to be deployed and marks the first satellite developed by Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). MYSat-1 was developed as part of Khalifa’s Space Systems and Technology Concentration, a joint program established in 2015 in collaboration with UAE-based satellite operator Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) and Northrop Grumman. Engineers from both companies helped develop the initial curriculum for the concentration, and provided guidance and mentorship during the design phase of the MYSat-1 satellite.

Cygnus is also prepared to execute on the inaugural flight for the Slingshot CubeSat Deployer System which is another example of the cargo vehicle’s ability to meet multiple customer needs. Slingshot is a flexible platform that can fly hosted payloads and CubeSats. NASA astronauts will install the system on Cygnus after the primary mission is completed. Upon completion of its secondary missions, Cygnus will perform a safe, destructive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.

Airbus-built Aeolus satellite ready to take on the wind

Aeolus Encapsulation Copyright ESA CNES

ESA’s wind sensing spacecraft Aeolus, is encapsulated into the Vega 
launcher ready for lift-off

Stevenage/Kourou, 09/08/2018 - Aeolus, the European Space Agency’s wind sensing satellite, has been encapsulated into the Vega launcher at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou ready for launch on the 21 August.

Built by Airbus, Aeolus will be the first satellite capable of performing global wind-component-profile observation on a daily basis in near real-time.

The 1.4-tonne spacecraft, features the LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) instrument called Aladin, which uses the Doppler effect to determine the wind speed at varying altitudes.

The data from Aeolus will provide reliable wind-profile data on a global scale and is needed by meteorologists to further improve the accuracy of weather forecasts and by climatologists to better understand the global dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere.

Aeolus will orbit the Earth 15 times a day with data delivery to users within 120 minutes of the oldest measurement in each orbit. The orbit repeat cycle is 7 days (every 111 orbits) and the spacecraft will fly in a 320 km orbit and have a lifetime of three years.