Crew Escape System

To calculate mass properties of rocket motors and gas generators for escape systems, Talley Industries of Arizona, Inc. engineers use a computer program developed by Langley Research Center. Called MASPROP, the program performs calculations needed to determine the center of gravity for a particular thruster, a determination essential to accurate positioning of the motor or generator in the aircrew escape system. Talley's use of MASPROP replaced hand calculations that sometimes involved several weeks of effort; the computer program reduces the time for each calculation to four hours or less.