Location
Cocoa Beach, FL
Start Date
7-3-1966 8:00 AM
Description
Constituents of the pressure environment of an aborted launch include the unbalance of the atmospheric pressure caused by the blast and the pressure differentials developing across structures due to the rapid succession of overpressures and underpressures of the shockfront as it spreads through the launch complex.
The main features of the thermal environment are the fireball, its heat output, and the values, distribution, and duration of the ambient temperatures.
The knowledge of the behavior of the pressure and thermal environments of an aborted launch is a starting point for the engineering design or evaluation of materials, assemblies, or systems which might be exposed to the abort environment and are expected to survive.
This paper describes the first known measurement and interpretation of abort data. The occasion was the accidental disintegration of the Atlas-Centaur vehicle at the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, on 2 March 1965. Other applications of launch hazards instrumentation are discussed.
Environmental Parameters of an Aborted Launch
Cocoa Beach, FL
Constituents of the pressure environment of an aborted launch include the unbalance of the atmospheric pressure caused by the blast and the pressure differentials developing across structures due to the rapid succession of overpressures and underpressures of the shockfront as it spreads through the launch complex.
The main features of the thermal environment are the fireball, its heat output, and the values, distribution, and duration of the ambient temperatures.
The knowledge of the behavior of the pressure and thermal environments of an aborted launch is a starting point for the engineering design or evaluation of materials, assemblies, or systems which might be exposed to the abort environment and are expected to survive.
This paper describes the first known measurement and interpretation of abort data. The occasion was the accidental disintegration of the Atlas-Centaur vehicle at the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, on 2 March 1965. Other applications of launch hazards instrumentation are discussed.
