Overview of Orion Crew Module and Launch Abort Vehicle Dynamic Stability

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA is designing a new spacecraft, called Orion, to fly astronauts to low earth orbit and beyond. Characterization of the dynamic stability of the Orion spacecraft is important for the design of the spacecraft and trajectory construction. Dynamic stability affects the stability and control of the Orion Crew Module during re-entry, especially below Mach = 2.0 and including flight under the drogues. The Launch Abort Vehicle is affected by dynamic stability as well, especially during the re-orientation and heatshield forward segments of the flight. The dynamic stability was assessed using the forced oscillation technique, free-to-oscillate, ballistic range, and sub-scale free-flight tests. All of the test techniques demonstrated that in heatshield-forward flight the Crew Module and Launch Abort Vehicle are dynamically unstable in a significant portion of their flight trajectory. This paper will provide a brief overview of the Orion dynamic aero program and a high-level summary of the dynamic stability characteristics of the Orion spacecraft.