Bart Leahy

March 2nd, 2017

SpaceXs Falcon 9 touches down at 9:47 a.m. EST (14:47 GMT) Feb. 19, 2017, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Stations Landing Zone 1. With more rocket launches, and now rocket landings, the Eastern Range is working to automate flight safety systems in order to handle the growing demand of space access. Photo Credit: Mike Deep / SpaceFlight Insider

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. After supporting over 3,500 launches in the past 70 years, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) faces a busy 2017. With a scheduled flight manifest of some 30 launches, the Eastern Range is changing the way it handles flight safety to satisfy awider array of customers.

Every rocket launched has a feature onboard that can commanded the vehicle to self-destruct: a flight termination system. Until 2017, however, the actual command to destroy a rocket came manually from the Range Safety Officer on the ground.

SpaceXs CRS-10 Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lift off from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff occurred at 9:38 a.m. EST (14:38 GMT). Photo Credit: Mike Deep / SpaceFlight Insider

Now, however, a new device, the Autonomous Flight Safety System or AFSS, puts the control in the hands of a computer onboard the rocket.

AFSS was first demonstrated as a primary system on an operational flight during SpaceXs Feb. 19, 2017, CRS-10 launch from Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceXs President and Chief Operating Officer, explained that the company has been using autonomous flight safety systems for a while in shadow mode with the manual system being the primary.

The AFSS is a self-contained, independent system mounted to a launch vehicle. The systems computer determines if the launch vehicle poses an unacceptable hazard to people or property by using pre-established, programmed mission rules developed by range safety flight analysts. If the computer determines the rocket is a danger to public safety, it activates a series of controlled explosions to immediately stop the vehicles forward progress.

Up to now, these public safety decisions were made by individual human controllers on the ground. Kennedy Space Center Director and former astronaut Bob Cabana said the automated system is the wave of the future and it is where the range is going.

Cabanas reasoning for this is that, in some cases, human beings are more cautious than the computers and might initiate the flight safety system unnecessarily.

If done right, an autonomous system is safer than having a human in the loop, Cabana said.

The AFSS is configurable and uses software-based rules that rely on redundant flight processors usingdata from GPSand onboard sensors. The system also reduces the amount of customized hardware CCAFS must have on the ground to activateflight termination systems. This allows the range to improve its turnaround times usingtougher safety standards and fewer people on console while still reducing launch costs.

The end result is the automated system can ensure the Eastern Range can increase the number of customersseeking space access.

CCAFSs customer base has been steadily increasing, from NASA and the Air Force to United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX.

In the next few years, CCAFS will also support launches and landings by Blue Origin, crewed launches to the International Space Station by SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada Corporation, as well as small launcher operations from KSCs Launch Complex 39C.

On Jan. 23, 2017, an Atlas V with SBIRS GEO-3 arcs out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station toward its designated orbit. Photo Credit: Michael Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

With more stakeholders requiringaccess to space, the Air Forces Eastern Range (the ocean east of CCAFS) and the Western Range (the area south of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California) have had to develop innovative solutions to launch rockets without compromising public safety. They are also coping with aging infrastructure and constrained resourcesin the face of increased flight rates.

In a recent media release, General Jay Raymond, Air Force Space Command commander, said the Air Force Space Command partners with industry in order to advance its space capabilities.

AFSS allows us to increase the pace of launch, reduce costly infrastructure and more rapidly build a resilient space enterprise, Raymond said. These benefits will be felt globally.

While reducing the number of controllers on the ground, AFSS also provides greater flight termination control further downrange than would be possible by activating the system remotely.

Because the controls are aboard the rocket, a flight termination command can also be issued more quickly. The onboard capability also means AFSS can operate over the horizon, so flight termination is no longer limited by ground equipment sending signals by line of sight.

Additionally, AFSS can support multiple objects in simultaneous flight, which is crucial for companies like SpaceX, which plans to land multiple first stage cores for its Falcon Heavy vehicle at nearly the same time.

Our role to ensure public safety during launches using this system is unchanged, said 45th Space Wing Chief Engineer Howard Schindzielorz. Our Flight Termination System requirements still apply for design, test, operational performance and reliability. We still develop the mission rules to provide public safety, but the system works with mission rule data files loaded into the on-board AFSS units. This essentially shifts the workload to the front-end of the launch process.

AFSS increases launch availability by reducing the amount of hardware needed on the ground. This includes eliminating the cost of hardware needed for non-AFSS launches, such as Uninterruptible Power Supplies, ground-system software, Independent Validation & Verification, and testing equipment.

The 45th Space Wing is pushing its systems to support a launch manifest of up to 48 launches per year early one per week by 2020.

Tagged: 45th Space Wing automated flight safety system Cape Canaveral Air Force Station CRS-10 Eastern Range Falcon 9 flight termination system SpaceX The Range

Bart Leahy is a freelance technical writer living in Orlando, Florida. Leahy's diverse career has included work for The Walt Disney Company, NASA, the Department of Defense, Nissan, a number of commercial space companies, small businesses, nonprofits, as well as the Science Cheerleaders.

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Automated flight safety improving space access - SpaceFlight Insider