Boilerplate (rocketry)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boilerplate version of Gemini spacecraft on display at Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral, Florida October 15, 2004.
Boilerplate version of Gemini spacecraft on display at Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral, Florida October 15, 2004.

The term Boilerplate in rocketry refers to a non-functional system or payload which is used to test the configuration. It is a lot cheaper to use this method than to launch the full spacecraft.

Boilerplate spacecraft are most commonly used to test manned spacecraft, for example, in the early 1960s, NASA performed many tests of boilerplate Apollo spacecraft atop Saturn I rockets, boilerplate Gemini spacecraft atop Titan II rockets, and boilerplate Mercury spacecraft atop Big Joe 1 rockets. Future space travel to destinations in our solar system will include boilerplate Orion spacecraft atop Ares boosters.

Contents

[edit] Mercury Boilerplates

A summary of Mercury Boilerplates can be found at A Field Guide to American Spacecraft.


[edit] Gemini Boilerplates

Gemini Boilerplate 3A had functional doors and had muli-uses for testing water-tightness, flotation collars, and egress procedures.

[edit] Photos

McDonnell plant, St. Louis, Mo.

Flotation and rescue test.

Flotation and egress test.

[edit] Apollo Boilerplates

[edit] BP-1101A

This McDonnell Boilerplate is now on loan to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum[1], Denver, Colorado, from the Smithsonian. BP-1101A has an external painted marking of AP.5. Examination of the interior in 2006 revealed large heavy steel ingots.A.

BP1101A AP5. Front view, Wings Museum.

BP1101A AP5. Side view.

Display plaque.

[edit] BP-1220/1228 Series[2]

The purpose of this series design was to simulate various external physical characteristics and it’s weight of the Apollo command module. These prototypes were in the 9000 lbs range for both laboratory water tanks and ocean tests. These experiments tested floatation collars, collar installations, and buoyancy characteristics. NASA had the Navy test their recovery personnel to train for ocean collar installation and shipboard retrieval procedures. These boilerplates rarely had internal equipment.

[edit] Orion Boilerplate [3]

NASA’s future space flights to the Moon are being planned for 2015. These flights will be based upon the Orion spacecraft and its Ares booster. The Shuttles are planned to be retired in 2010. The Orion boilerplates will be used between 2008 and 2014 using the Ares I booster and the heavy-lift launches Ares V, both of which are slated to launch initially from NASA’s Pad 39B site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The construction of the first Orion Boilerplate, will be a basic mockup [prototype]] to test the assembling sequences and launch procedures at NASA’s Langley Research Center while Lockheed aerospace engineers assemble the first rocket motors for the spacecraft’s escape tower. The first boilerplate field test trials of the escape tower sytstem at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range in 2008. Lockheed Martin Corp. was awarded the contract to build Orion on Aug. 31, 2006


Other boilerplates will be used to test thermal, electromagnetic, audio, mechanical vibration conditions and research studies. These tests for the Orion spacecraft will be done at Plum Brook Station in the agency’s Ohio-based Glenn Research Center.

The Orion-Ares configuration is known as a part of NASA’s Project Constellation. This project’s plan is to send humans to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations in the solar system. Its base components will consist of the Launch Abort System the Crew Module, the Service Module, and the Spacecraft Adapter.

[edit] References

A Lance Barber, Curator of Military Aircraft, Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum.

  1. ^ Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum Offical Site
  2. ^ Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Offical Site
  3. ^ NASA's Project Constellaton Official Site


[edit] Internal links

[edit] External links

 This rocketry article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/o/i/Boilerplate_%28rocketry%29.html"