Range safety
Encyclopedia
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
ry, range safety is assured by the systems which protect people and assets on the rocket range in cases when a launch vehicle
Launch vehicle
In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from the Earth's surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad and other infrastructure....
might endanger them. Range safety is usually the responsibility of a Range Safety Officer
Range Safety Officer
In the field of rocketry, Range Safety Officer is a generic term referring to an individual who monitors the performance of rockets in flight, and who is responsible for their remote destruction if it should be judged that they pose a hazard...
(RSO). At NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, the range safety goal is for the general public to be as safe during range operations as they are in their normal day-to-day activities.
Flight termination
Some launch systems use flight termination for range safety. In these systems the RSO can remotely command the vehicle to self-destruct to prevent the vehicle from traveling outside of prescribed safety zone. This allows as-yet unconsumed propellants to combust at altitude, rather than upon the vehicle reaching the ground.Thrust termination
A less destructive type of range safety system allows the RSO to remotely command the vehicle to shut down its propulsive rocket engineRocket engine
A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...
s. The thrust termination concept was proposed for the Titan III
Titan III
The Titan IIIC was a space booster used by the United States Air Force. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. It was planned to be used as a launch vehicle in the cancelled Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory programs...
-M launch vehicle which would have been used in the Manned Orbiting Laboratory
Manned Orbiting Laboratory
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory , originally referred to as the Manned Orbital Laboratory, was part of the United States Air Force's manned spaceflight program, a successor to the cancelled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane project...
program.
See also
- Ballistic Missile Range Safety Technology
- Range Safety and Telemetry SystemRange Safety and Telemetry SystemRange Safety and Telemetry System is a GPS based, S-band telemetry receiving and UHF command destruct system, with two 5.4-meter telemetry and command destruct auto-tracking antennas. The system built by Honeywell International...