Hazard of an Explosion of the ARIANE 5 Launcher- The Risks for the Astronauts Sitting on the Ejector Seats

摘要

Europeans will soon send inhabited missions into space with the Ariane 5 launcher and space shuttle Hermes combination. In case of an incident at launch, either on the pad or up to some speed after launch, it is proposed to eject the flightcrew to safety on individual ejector seats. The risks which would be confronted by the astronauts have been studied. This paper presents the development of a method for calculating the probability that a fragment of the launcher hits an ejector seat either in flight or at ground level during the initial launch phase.