page_title: Orion abort modes
hierarchical_section_title: Orion abort modes
caption_attribution_description: English: Technicians carefully position an Orion flight test crew module to be airlifted from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Centre to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The crew module will be used for the Orion Launch Abort System Pad Abort-1 flight test, the first of five planned Orion Launch Abort System Pad flight tests in NASA's Constellation program.
context_page_description: The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is a class of partially reusable spacecraft used in NASA's human spaceflight programs. Consisting two components – a Crew Module manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and a European Service Module manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space – the spacecraft are designed to support crewed exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Orion is equipped with solar power, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and can support a crew of six up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Although compatible with other launch vehicles, Orion is primarily designed to launch atop a Space Launch System rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
  The earlier Apollo system had various abort modes depending on altitude, velocity, and other circumstances. Likewise the Orion will have similar modes of operation for its launch performance aborts.
context_section_description: The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion MPCV) is a class of partially reusable spacecraft used in NASA's human spaceflight programs. Consisting two components – a Crew Module (CM) manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and a European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space – the spacecraft are designed to support crewed exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Orion is equipped with solar power, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and can support a crew of six up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Although compatible with other launch vehicles, Orion is primarily designed to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
  The earlier Apollo system had various abort modes depending on altitude, velocity, and other circumstances. Likewise the Orion will have similar modes of operation for its launch performance aborts. Some of these may not use the LAS itself, but would use the second stage of the SLS, or even the Orion vehicle's own propulsion system (the Aerojet AJ10 engine) instead.
  Initially designed to land on solid ground, like that of the early and current Soviet and Russian crewed spacecraft (Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz), with a water landing as a backup, in August 2007, NASA tentatively redesigned the Orion for water landings (splashdowns) as the primary mode of landing, with ground landings as the emergency backup. Under the advice of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) report, NASA will most likely develop abort procedures that resemble the abort procedures used on Apollo, but with some procedures carried over from the Shuttle.
caption: Technicians carefully position an Orion flight test crew module to be airlifted. This module was planned to be used for a launch abort system pad-abort flight test.
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