The Hazard of an Explosion of the ARIANE 5 Launcher- The Risks for the Astronauts Sitting on the Ejector Seats

Abstract

Europeans will soon send inhabited missions into space with the Ariane 5 launcher and space shuttle Hermes combination. In case of an incident at launch, either on the pad or up to some speed after launch, it is proposed to eject the flightcrew to safety on individual ejector seats. The risks which would be confronted by the astronauts have been studied. This paper presents the development of a method for calculating the probability that a fragment of the launcher hits an ejector seat either in flight or at ground level during the initial launch phase.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 30, 1990
Accession Number
ADA532174

Entities

People

  • F. Laporte
  • M. Rouze

Organizations

  • CNES

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accidents
  • Accuracy
  • Combustion
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Explosions
  • Explosives
  • Launchers
  • Liquid Hydrogen
  • Liquid Propellants
  • Liquid Rocket Propellants
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Materials Testing
  • Propellants
  • Rocket Propellants
  • Space Shuttles
  • Trajectories

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Explosive Engineering.
  • Missile Defense Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Space