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80-418: Governments maintain many regulations on launch vehicles and associated ground systems, prescribing the procedures that need to be followed by any entity aiming to launch into space. Areas in which one or more spaceports are operated, or ranges, issue out closely guarded exclusion zones for air and sea traffic prior to launch, and close off certain areas to the public. Contingency procedures are performed if

160-696: A flight controller . The RSO works at the Range Operations Control Center at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the job of the RSO ends when the missile or vehicle moves out of range and is no longer a threat to any sea or land area (after completing first stage ascent). Unlike the US program, the Russian space program does not destroy rockets mid-air when they malfunction. If a launch vehicle loses control, either ground controllers may issue

240-761: A Node 3 spaceport on the Martian moon Phobos to enable refueling and resupply prior to Mars surface landings, missions beyond Mars, and return trips to Earth. In addition to propellant mining and refueling, the network of spaceports could provide services such as power storage and distribution, in-space assembly and repair of spacecraft, communications relay, shelter, construction and leasing of infrastructure, maintaining spacecraft positioned for future use, and logistics. Space launch facilities have been colonial developments and have also been impacting its surroundings by destroying or polluting their environment, creating precarious cleanup situations. X band The X band

320-859: A common misconception, the MFCO is not part of the Safety Office, but is instead part of the Operations group of the Range Squadron of the Space Launch Delta 45 of the Space Force , and is considered a direct representative of the Delta Commander. The MFCO is guided in making destruct decisions by as many as three different types of computer display graphics, generated by the flight analysis section of range safety. One of

400-493: A driving factor in spaceport placement because most of the delta-v for a launch is spent on achieving the required horizontal orbital speed . The small gain from a few kilometers of extra altitude does not usually off-set the logistical costs of ground transport in mountainous terrain. Many spaceports have been placed at existing military installations, such as intercontinental ballistic missile ranges, which are not always physically ideal sites for launch. A rocket launch site

480-407: A first stage splashdown north of Cuba. Such a launch corridor is not feasible with a ground-commanded system due to radio interference from the rocket's own exhaust plume facing the ground station. In August 2020, SpaceX demonstrated this capability with the launch of SAOCOM 1B . The AFTS on SpaceX's Starship exhibited considerable issues on its first flight . SpaceX expected the vehicle to be given

560-443: A flight by own initiative , including the infamous Ariane 501 in 1996. In 2018, an Ariane 5 launcher carrying two commercial satellites veered off course shortly after liftoff . Ground control was shown a nominal course of the rocket until 9 minutes into the flight, when the second stage ignited and contact was lost. The rocket nearly flew over Kourou , and at the time the RSO realised that it flew closer to land than intended, it

640-461: A flight termination system. Range safety has been practiced since the early launch attempts conducted from Cape Canaveral in 1950. Space vehicles for sub-orbital and orbital flights from the Eastern and Western Test Ranges were destroyed if they endangered populated areas by crossing pre-determined destruct lines encompassing the safe flight launch corridor. After initial lift-off, flight information

720-534: A launch vehicle's location to the range. Range safety measures are performed during launches of the Chollima-1 orbital launch vehicle. On the successful third launch attempt of the rocket, it was reported that officials activated the flight termination system on the first stage after separation, presumably to destroy evidence in an effort to prevent reverse engineering if the booster were to be recovered by South Korea or allies. A flight termination system (FTS)

800-444: A manner that is as controlled as possible. This is done by detonating high explosives , usually linear shaped charges , in specific areas of the rocket, which initiates structural failure and renders the vehicle aerodynamically unstable. On liquid-fueled rockets , the propellant tanks are cut open to spill out their contents. The rocket's engines are usually also destroyed or disabled. On rockets containing hypergolic propellants ,

880-477: A manual shutdown command or the onboard computer can perform it automatically. In this case, the rocket is simply allowed to impact the ground intact. Since Russia's launch sites are in remote areas far from significant populations, it has never been seen as necessary to include a flight termination system. During the Soviet era, expended rocket stages or debris from failed launches were thoroughly cleaned up, but since

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960-831: A more-or-less experimental basis, such as in the K band .) Notable deep space probe programs that have employed X band communications include the Viking Mars landers ; the Voyager missions to Jupiter , Saturn , and beyond; the Galileo Jupiter orbiter ; the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt , the Curiosity rover and the Cassini-Huygens Saturn orbiter. An important use of

1040-517: A rocket launch, it is required to be effectively 100 percent reliable. Flight termination systems are also frequently installed on unmanned aerial vehicles . To prevent other components from interfering with its decisions, the FTS has to operate entirely independently from the rocket; as such, it needs separate maintenance and comes with its own power source. In the case of multistage rockets and those utilizing side boosters, each stage and each booster on

1120-710: A safe trajectory. The vehicle then may be destroyed by its tanks colliding and cracking. This method was first proposed for the Titan III-M launch vehicle, which would have been used in the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. An autonomous flight termination system (AFTS) or autonomous flight safety system (AFSS) is a system in which flight termination can be commanded on a rocket without the involvement of ground personnel. Instead, AFTS destructors have their own computers that are programmed to detect mission rule violations and implement measures to bring

1200-501: A seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word spaceport , and even more so cosmodrome , has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named "spaceports". Space stations and proposed future bases on

1280-406: A separate computer unit on the rocket itself. Before each launch, the area surrounding the launch pad is evacuated, and notices to aviators and boatsmen to avoid certain locations on launch day are given. This facilitates the creation of a designated area for rockets to launch, called the launch corridor. The borders of the launch corridor are called the destruct lines. The exact coordinates of

1360-529: A single coaxial cable with a power adapter connecting to an ordinary cable modem. The local oscillator is usually 9750 MHz, the same as for K u band satellite TV LNB. Two way applications such as broadband typically use a 350 MHz TX offset. Small portions of the X band are assigned by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) exclusively for deep space telecommunications. The primary user of this allocation

1440-603: A somewhat similar set of graphics and display system. However, the Western Range MFCOs fall under the Safety Team during launches, and they are the focal point for all safety related activities during a launch. Even for U.S. crewed space missions, the RSO has authority to order the remote destruction of the launch vehicle if it shows signs of being out of control during launch, and if it crosses pre-set abort limits designed to protect populated areas from harm. In

1520-497: A substantial link margin . The signal levels seen by the range safety receivers are checked before launch and monitored throughout flight to ensure adequate margins. When the launch vehicle is no longer a threat, the range safety system is typically safed (shut down) to prevent inadvertent activation. The S-IVB stage of the Saturn 1B and Saturn V rockets did this with a command to the range safety system to remove its own power. In

1600-471: A table of spaceports and launch complexes for vertical launchers with documented achieved launches of humans to space (more than 100 km (62 mi) altitude). The sorting order is spaceport by spaceport according to the time of the first human launch. † Three of the Soyuz missions were uncrewed and are not counted ( Soyuz 2 , Soyuz 20 , Soyuz 34 ). ‡ STS-51-L ( Challenger ) failed to reach orbit and

1680-424: A vehicle malfunctions or veers off course mid-flight. Usually, a range safety officer (RSO) commands the flight or mission to end by sending a signal to the flight termination system (FTS) aboard the rocket. This takes measures to eliminate any means with which the vehicle could endanger anyone or anything on the ground, most often through the use of explosives. Flight termination could also be triggered autonomously by

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1760-602: A year. 48 launches annually can now be supported, and the cost of range services for a single launch has been reduced by 50 percent. The addition of AFTS has also loosened up the inclination limits on launches from the US Eastern Range. By early 2018, the US Air Force had approved a trajectory that could allow polar launches to take place from Cape Canaveral . The 'polar corridor' would involve turning south shortly after liftoff, passing just east of Miami, with

1840-410: Is a set of interconnected activators and actuators mounted on a launch vehicle which can shut down or destroy components of the vehicle to render it incapable of flight. The main task of an FTS is to remove any means of propulsion for any part of a rocket involved in a malfunction when necessary. As it is the only thing that is able to ensure the safety of ground facilities, personnel and spectators during

1920-566: Is built as far as possible away from major population centers in order to mitigate risk to bystanders should a rocket experience a catastrophic failure. In many cases a launch site is built close to major bodies of water to ensure that no components are shed over populated areas. Typically a spaceport site is large enough that, should a vehicle explode, it will not endanger human lives or adjacent launch pads. Planned sites of spaceports for sub-orbital tourist spaceflight often make use of existing ground infrastructure, including runways. The nature of

2000-544: Is captured with X- and C-band radars, and S-Band telemetry receivers from vehicle-borne transmitters. At the Eastern Test Range, S and C-Band antennas were located in the Bahamas and as far as the island of Antigua, after which the space vehicle finished its propulsion stages or is in orbit. Two switches were used, arm and destruct . The arm switch shut down propulsion for liquid propelled vehicles, and

2080-409: Is destroyed during flight to prevent it from leaving the launch corridor or continue an otherwise errant flight. The resulting destruction is required to scatter rocket parts over a small area, ensuring the majority of the parts stay within the launch corridor and are able to cause as little damage or injuries as possible. Additionally, it has to combust and disperse its propellant far above the ground in

2160-614: Is in Kourou , French Guiana. ESA rockets employ flight safety systems similar to the US' despite the relative remoteness of the launch center. Range safety at Europe's Spaceport is the responsibility of the Flight Safety Team, with the launch site and surrounding areas being safeguarded by the French Foreign Legion . The earliest Ariane 5 rockets were controlled by flight computers with the capability to terminate

2240-566: Is not authorised to allocate frequency bands for military radio communication . This is also the case pertaining to X band military communications satellites . However, in order to meet military radio spectrum requirements, e.g. for fixed-satellite service and mobile-satellite service , the NATO nations negotiated the NATO Joint Civil/Military Frequency Agreement (NJFA). 2. 7250-7300 MHz

2320-452: Is not counted. STS-107 ( Columbia ) reached orbit and is therefore included in the count (disaster struck on re-entry). Crewed Missions failed to reach Kármán line: Soyuz T-10a (1983) STS-51-L (1986) Soyuz MS-10 (2018) The following is a table of spaceports with a documented achieved launch to orbit. The table is sorted according to the time of the first launch that achieved satellite orbit insertion. The first column gives

2400-475: Is often used in modern radars. The shorter wavelengths of the X ;band provide higher-resolution imagery from high-resolution imaging radars for target identification and discrimination. X-band weather radars offer significant potential for short-range observations, but the loss of signal strength ( attenuation ) under rainy conditions limits their use at longer range. X band 10.15 to 10.7 GHz segment

2480-504: Is paired with 7975-8025 MHz for the MOBILE-SATELLlTE allocation. 3. The FIXED and MOBILE services are not to be implemented in the band 7250-7300 MHz in most NATO countries, including ITU Region 2. 4. In the band 7300-7750 MHz the transportable earth stations cannot claim protection from the other services. The Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union allow amateur radio operations in

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2560-765: Is the American NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). DSN facilities are in Goldstone, California (in the Mojave Desert ), near Canberra, Australia , and near Madrid, Spain , and provide continual communications from the Earth to almost any point in the Solar System independent of Earth rotation. (DSN stations are also capable of using the older and lower S band deep-space radio communications allocations, and some higher frequencies on

2640-484: Is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum . In some cases, such as in communication engineering , the frequency range of the X band is rather indefinitely set at approximately 7.0–11.2  GHz . In radar engineering, the frequency range is specified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as 8.0–12.0 GHz. The X band

2720-557: Is the major European spaceport, with satellite launches that benefit from the location 5 degrees north of the equator. In October 2003 the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center achieved the first Chinese human spaceflight. Breaking with tradition, in June 2004 on a runway at Mojave Air and Space Port , California, a human was for the first time launched to space in a privately funded, suborbital spaceflight, that

2800-511: Is used for radar , satellite communication , and wireless computer networks . X band is used in radar applications, including continuous-wave , pulsed, single- polarization , dual-polarization, synthetic aperture radar , and phased arrays . X-band radar frequency sub-bands are used in civil , military , and government institutions for weather monitoring , air traffic control , maritime vessel traffic control , defense tracking , and vehicle speed detection for law enforcement. X band

2880-420: Is used for terrestrial broadband in many countries, such as Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Ukraine, Spain and Ireland. Alvarion , CBNL , CableFree and Ogier make systems for this, though each has a proprietary airlink. DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) the standard used for providing cable internet to customers, uses some X band frequencies. The home / Business CPE has

2960-454: The Earth's rotational speed (465 m/s at the equator). Such launches also provide a desirable orientation for arriving at a geostationary orbit . For polar orbits and Molniya orbits this does not apply. In principle, advantages of high altitude launch are reduced vertical distance to travel and a thinner atmosphere for the rocket to penetrate. However, altitude of the launch site is not

3040-728: The Moon , Mars , orbiting the Earth, at Sun-Earth and Earth-Moon Lagrange points , and at other locations in the Solar System . Human-tended outposts on the Moon or Mars, for example, will be spaceports by definition. The 2012 Space Studies Program of the International Space University studied the economic benefit of a network of spaceports throughout the solar system beginning from Earth and expanding outwardly in phases, within its team project Operations And Service Infrastructure for Space (OASIS). Its analysis claimed that

3120-665: The US space program , range safety is usually the responsibility of a Range Safety Officer (RSO), affiliated with either the civilian space program led by NASA or the military space program led by the Department of Defense , through its subordinate unit the United States Space Force . At NASA , the goal is for the general public to be as safe during range operations as they are in their normal day-to-day activities. All US launch vehicles are required to be equipped with

3200-405: The destruct ignited the primacord surrounding the fuel tanks. The Cape Canaveral Space Force Station saw around 450 failed launches of missiles and rockets (of around 3400 total) between 1950 and 1998, with an unknown amount of flights ending by intervention of onboard or ground-based safety mechanisms. As of June 2024, the most recent activation of the flight termination system on a US rocket

3280-425: The FTS usable and shut down the engines of liquid-fueled rockets. Now, the FTS is usually armed just before launch. A separate 'fire' command detonates explosives, typically linear shaped charges , to disable the rocket. Reliability is a high priority in range safety systems, with extensive emphasis on redundancy and pre-launch testing. Range safety transmitters operate continuously at very high power levels to ensure

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3360-662: The Launch Escape System time to pull the capsule away. The U.S. Space Shuttle orbiter did not have destruct devices, but the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and external tank both did. After the Space Shuttle Challenger broke up in flight , the RSO ordered the uncontrolled, free-flying SRBs destroyed before they could pose a threat. Despite the fact that the RSO continues work after Kennedy Space Center hands over control to Mission Control at Johnson Space Center , they are not considered to be

3440-406: The Moon are sometimes called spaceports, in particular if intended as a base for further journeys. The term rocket launch site is used for any facility from which rockets are launched. It may contain one or more launch pads or suitable sites to mount a transportable launch pad. It is typically surrounded by a large safety area, often called a rocket range or missile range . The range includes

3520-401: The RSO for this information were a supporting team of RSOs reporting from profile and horizontal parallel wires used at liftoff (before radar technology was available) and telemetry indicators. Throughout the flight, RSOs pay close attention to the instantaneous impact point (IIP) of the launch vehicle, which is constantly updated along with its position; when a rocket is predicted to cross one of

3600-637: The US Department of Defense, with its development being included in the Commercial Orbital Transportation System program. Both ATK and SpaceX have developed AFSS. Both systems use a GPS-aided, computer controlled system to terminate an off-nominal flight, supplementing or replacing the more traditional human-in-the-loop monitoring system. ATK's Autonomous Flight Safety System made its debut on November 19, 2013, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility . The system

3680-466: The X band communications came with the two Viking program landers. When the planet Mars was passing near or behind the Sun, as seen from the Earth, a Viking lander would transmit two simultaneous continuous-wave carriers, one in the S band and one in the X band in the direction of the Earth, where they were picked up by DSN ground stations. By making simultaneous measurements at the two different frequencies,

3760-958: The area over which launched rockets are expected to fly, and within which some components of the rockets may land. Tracking stations are sometimes located in the range to assess the progress of the launches. Major spaceports often include more than one launch complex , which can be rocket launch sites adapted for different types of launch vehicles . (These sites can be well-separated for safety reasons.) For launch vehicles with liquid propellant, suitable storage facilities and, in some cases, production facilities are necessary. On-site processing facilities for solid propellants are also common. A spaceport may also include runways for takeoff and landing of aircraft to support spaceport operations, or to enable support of HTHL or horizontal takeoff and vertical landing (HTVL) winged launch vehicles. The first rockets to reach space were V-2 rockets launched from Peenemünde , Germany in 1944 during World War II . After

3840-452: The case of crewed flight, the vehicle would be allowed to fly to apogee before the destruct was transmitted. This would allow the astronauts the maximum amount of time for their self-ejection. Just prior to activation of the destruct charges, the engine(s) on the booster stage are also shut down. For example, on the 1960s Mercury/Gemini/Apollo launches, the RSO system was designed to not activate until three seconds after engine cutoff to give

3920-550: The collapse of the USSR, this practice has lapsed. It is unknown if China implements safety and contingency assessments surrounding rocket launches and if a flight termination system is installed in each of the country's launch vehicles. The country is known for leaving rocket parts to fall back to Earth in an uncontrolled trajectory. In one case , a launch vehicle crashed into a village near Xichang Satellite Launch Center after veering off course, killing at least six persons. In 2024,

4000-519: The cosmodrome was initially held secret. Guesses to its location were misdirected by a name in common with a mining town 320 km away. The position became known in 1957 outside the Soviet Union only after U-2 planes had identified the site by following railway lines in the Kazakh SSR , although Soviet authorities did not confirm the location for decades. The Baikonur Cosmodrome achieved

4080-665: The debris would fall if the MFCO were to destroy the Shuttle at that moment. This real time footprint was developed in response to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 when stray solid rocket boosters unexpectedly broke off from the destroyed core vehicle and began traveling uprange, toward land. Range safety at the Western Range ( Vandenberg Space Force Base in California) is controlled using

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4160-553: The destruct command at the point the vehicle lost thrust vector control at T+1:30, but this was done much later. Upon activation, the explosive ordnance detonated as expected, but destruction was delayed; the vehicle was only destroyed at T+3:59, 40 seconds after the AFTS was estimated to be triggered. In December 2019, Rocket Lab announced that they added AFTS on their Electron rocket. Rocket Lab indicated that four previous flights had both ground and AFT systems. The December 2019 launch

4240-459: The destruct lines in flight because of any reason, a destruct command is issued to prevent the vehicle from endangering people and assets outside of the safety zone. This involves sending coded messages (typically sequences of audio tones, kept secret before launch) to special redundant UHF receivers in the various stages or components of the launch vehicle. Previously, the RSO transmitted an 'arm' command just before flight termination, which rendered

4320-675: The early human flights, were carried out at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station . For the Apollo programme, an adjacent spaceport, Kennedy Space Center , was constructed, and achieved the first crewed mission to the lunar surface ( Apollo 11 ) in July 1969. It was the base for all Space Shuttle launches and most of their runway landings. For details on the launch complexes of the two spaceports, see List of Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island launch sites . The Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana,

4400-423: The engines is sufficient to ensure flight safety. In those cases, full destruction of the vehicle is not necessary as it will be destroyed during reentry or on impact in an empty spot in the ocean. The FTS instead commands either the valves of the propellant and oxidizer lines to close, or explosives (such as pyrovalves ) to sever the fuel lines, rendering the vehicle unable to use its engines and ensuring it stays on

4480-480: The exception of the Space Shuttle , have employed a launch escape system to save the lives of the crew in case their carrier rocket malfunctions. A flight termination system typically consists of two sets of the following components: A flight can be terminated two ways, which are described below. In most cases, it is preferred that a malfunctioning launch vehicle is fully neutralized at altitude. A rocket

4560-602: The first launch of a human into space ( Yuri Gagarin ) in 1961. The launch complex used, Site 1, has reached a special symbolic significance and is commonly called Gagarin's Start . Baikonur was the primary Soviet cosmodrome, and is still frequently used by Russia under a lease arrangement with Kazakhstan. In response to the early Soviet successes, the United States built up a major spaceport complex at Cape Canaveral in Florida. A large number of uncrewed flights, as well as

4640-561: The first phase, placing the "Node 1" spaceport with space tug services in low Earth orbit (LEO), would be commercially profitable and reduce transportation costs to geosynchronous orbit by as much as 44% (depending on the launch vehicle). The second phase would add a Node 2 spaceport on the lunar surface to provide services including lunar ice mining and delivery of rocket propellants back to Node 1. This would enable lunar surface activities and further reduce transportation costs within and out from cislunar space . The third phase would add

4720-590: The flight of Artemis 3 . In 2020 NASA started developing the NASA Autonomous Flight Termination Unit (NAFTU) for use on commercial and government launch vehicles. Provisional certification of the unit was granted in 2022 for Rocket Lab's first U.S. Electron mission (from Wallops Flight Facility) in January 2023. Spaceport A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft , by analogy to

4800-769: The frequency range 10.000 to 10.500 GHz, and amateur satellite operations are allowed in the range 10.450 to 10.500 GHz. This is known as the 3-centimeter band by amateurs and the X-band by AMSAT . Motion detectors often use 10.525 GHz. 10.4 GHz is proposed for traffic light crossing detectors. Comreg in Ireland has allocated 10.450 GHz for Traffic Sensors as SRD. Many electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometers operate near 9.8 GHz. Particle accelerators may be powered by X-band RF sources. The frequencies are then standardized at 11.9942 GHz (Europe) or 11.424 GHz (US), which

4880-442: The geographical location. Operations from a different country are indicated in the fourth column. A launch is counted as one also in cases where the payload consists of multiple satellites. 4 Qaem 100 The following table shows spaceports with documented achieved launches of humans to at least 100 km altitude, starting from a horizontal runway. All the flights were sub-orbital . Spaceports have been proposed for locations on

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4960-513: The intertank section or the common bulkhead of the rocket's tanks is ruptured to ensure the toxic propellants mix and combust as much as possible when flight is terminated. On rockets fueled by cryogenic propellants , the tanks are perforated from the side to prevent excessive mixing and combustion of propellants, as an FTS is not allowed to detonate propellants and cause a violent explosion. Solid-fuel rockets cannot have their engines shut down, but splitting them open terminates thrust even though

5040-572: The launch corridor are dependent on weather and wind directions, and the properties of the launch vehicle and its payload. Launches can be postponed or scrubbed because of a boat, ship or aircraft entering the launch corridor. To assist the range safety officer (RSO) in monitoring the launch and making eventual decisions, there are many indicators showing the condition of the space vehicle in flight. These included booster chamber pressures, vertical plane charts (later supplanted by computer-generated destruct lines), and height and speed indicators. Supporting

5120-426: The launch vehicle is equipped with its own FTS. Flight termination usually destroys the payload with the rocket. Because of this, launch vehicles need to have their FTS examined on the extent of damage that could be inflicted on vehicle and payload upon activation, among other criteria, before they can receive certification for launching payloads relying on radioactive components for power. Crewed launch vehicles, with

5200-399: The local view from 100 km (62 mi) altitude is also a factor to consider. The space tourism industry (see List of private spaceflight companies ) is being targeted by spaceports in numerous locations worldwide. e.g. Spaceport America , New Mexico. The establishment of spaceports for tourist trips raises legal issues, which are only beginning to be addressed. The following is

5280-415: The mission to a safe end. Since 1998, these systems have been developed to bring down launch costs and enable faster and more responsive launch operations. Additionally, inadvertent separation destruct systems have been deployed to destroy parts of rockets autonomously when they are unintentionally removed or loosened from the remainder of the vehicle. NASA started developing AFSS in 2000, in partnership with

5360-483: The primary displays for most vehicles is a vacuum impact point display in which drag, vehicle turns, wind, and explosion parameters are built into the corresponding graphics. Another includes a vertical plane display with the vehicle's trajectory projected onto two planes. For the Space Shuttle, the primary display a MFCO used is a continuous real time footprint, a moving closed simple curve indicating where most of

5440-558: The private company Space Pioneer unintentionally launched one of their Tianlong-3 rockets during a test; it crashed in the mountains 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) away from the test site in Gongyi , China. From the early 2020s, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) started developing and implementing methods to prevent uncontrolled reentries of their Long March rocket boosters, most prominently by

5520-416: The propellant will continue to burn, as the explosive charges break the rocket and its fuel into pieces. In some cases, only the nosecone or top section of the solid propellant case might be removed from a solid rocket, with the risk that the remainder of the rocket explodes violently and cause injuries or damage upon impact with the ground or water. In some cases involving liquid-fueled rockets, shutting down

5600-480: The resulting data enabled theoretical physicists to verify the mathematical predictions of Albert Einstein 's General Theory of Relativity . These results are some of the best confirmations of the General Theory of Relativity. The new European double Mars Mission ExoMars will also use X band communication, on the instrument LaRa, to study the internal structure of Mars, and to make precise measurements of

5680-408: The rotation and orientation of Mars by monitoring two-way Doppler frequency shifts between the surface platform and Earth. It will also detect variations in angular momentum due to the redistribution of masses, such as the migration of ice from the polar caps to the atmosphere. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the international body which allocates radio frequencies for civilian use,

5760-595: The system, KASSAV 2, will have the authority to automatically terminate the flight in the event of the rocket going off course. The Japanese government has approved AFTS for use on the country's launch vehicles since the mid-2010s. The SpaceOne KAIROS solid-fuel rocket uses an AFTS. Future launch vehicles such as the Blue Origin New Glenn , United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur and ArianeGroup Ariane 6 are expected to have them as well. NASA's Space Launch System plans to introduce an AFT system by

5840-432: The use of parachutes . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) regulates space activities through its Safety and Mission Assurance department. The regulation JERG-1-007E stipulates many of the safety requirements to be maintained on the range on launch day, violations of launch safety, and the procedures to follow after launch aborts and failures and during emergencies on the range. The ESA 's primary launch site

5920-535: The war, 70 complete V-2 rockets were brought to White Sands for test launches, with 47 of them reaching altitudes between 100 km and 213 km. The world's first spaceport for orbital and human launches, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan , started as a Soviet military rocket range in 1955. It achieved the first orbital flight ( Sputnik 1 ) in October 1957. The exact location of

6000-546: Was decided not to terminate the flight out of concerns that the resulting debris would hit the town adjacent to the launch site. The two satellites were deployed into an off-target orbit and were able to correct their orbits with substantial losses of propellant. The launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are tracked by C-band and S-band radars. As of February 2019, ISRO does not use GPS and NavIC to directly transmit

6080-559: Was during Starship IFT-2 in 2023. For launches from the Eastern Range , which includes Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station , the Mission Flight Control Officer (MFCO) is responsible for ensuring public safety from the vehicle during its flight up to orbital insertion, or, in the event that the launch is of a ballistic type, until all pieces have fallen safely to Earth. Despite

6160-427: Was intended to pave the way for future commercial spaceflights. The spacecraft, SpaceShipOne , was launched by a carrier airplane taking off horizontally. At Cape Canaveral, SpaceX in 2015 made the first successful landing and recovery of a first stage used in a vertical satellite launch. Rockets can most easily reach satellite orbits if launched near the equator in an easterly direction, as this maximizes use of

6240-629: Was jointly developed by ATK facilities in Ronkonkoma, New York ; Plymouth, Minnesota ; and Promontory Point, Utah . The system developed by SpaceX was demonstrated in F9R Dev1 , a Falcon 9 booster used in 2013/14 to test its reusable rocket technology development program . In August 2014, after an errant sensor reading caused the booster to veer off course, the AFTS triggered and the vehicle disintegrated. The SpaceX autonomous flight termination system has since been used on many SpaceX launches and

6320-511: Was the first Electron launch with a fully autonomous flight termination system. All later flights have AFTS on board. In the event of the rocket going off course the AFTS would command the engines to shutdown. In August 2020, the European Space Agency announced that Ariane 5 has AFSS installed on the avionics bay. The AFSS onboard Ariane 5 is called KASSAV (Kit Autonome de Sécurité pour la SAuvergarde en Vol). A later version of

6400-507: Was well tested by 2017. Both the Eastern Range and Western Range facilities of the United States are now using the system, which has replaced the older "ground-based mission flight control personnel and equipment with on-board positioning, navigation and timing sources and decision logic." Moreover, the systems have allowed the US Air Force to drastically reduce their staffing and increase the number of launches that they can support in

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