Launch Complex Breaks Ground
By Ashley Meeks, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.
Nov. 15–WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE — It sure is neat, but they hope they never have to use it.
That’s the word on the Orion Abort Flight Test system, whose launch complex held its groundbreaking Wednesday in advance of a Sept. 23, 2008, liftoff that NASA says should be visible even in Las Cruces.
“This is going to be one of the coolest things we’ve ever done at White Sands,” said the missile range’s chief of staff, Dan Hicks.
City Councilor Dolores Archuleta represented Las Cruces at the groundbreaking.
“This is very exciting for White Sands and Las Cruces and the whole community,” Archuleta said. “I worked for NASA from 1964 to 1969, so I love that I’m here now.” The new test launch pad, to be built by Denco Inc., out of Las Cruces, will be the site of a yearlong series of tests of a launch-abort system that will help ensure the safety of astronauts aboard the new Orion spacecraft. NASA’s Constellation Program is developing Orion to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, the moon and eventually Mars and beyond.
Skip Hatfield, Orion project manager for NASA, said American astronauts should return to the moon no later than 2020 and land on Mars — a three-year round trip — by 2030, using the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.
The launch-abort system will enable that four-to-six-person pod to separate from its rocket and parachute to a land or water landing from a mile or higher in the air in the event of a problem on the launch pad or during the climb into orbit.
“We hope we’re never going to have to use an abort,” said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries. “It’s a safety measure we hope we never have to use it.”
ON THE WEB
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html
—–
To see more of the Las Cruces Sun-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.lcsun-news.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.