The NASA Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) program conducted the first flight test of the active ascent abort system on May 6th, 2010. The flight test was executed at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico with the objective to demonstrate the capability of the Launch Abort Vehicle (LAV) to successfully perform an abort from the launch pad. This paper will provide an overview of the Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) mission, an overview of the flight vehicle and GNC system, a review of the flight performance in contrast to the pre-flight predictions, and some GNC findings from the test.
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