How NASA plans to keep Artemis astronauts alive if disaster strikes

EDWARDS, Calif. — If NASA’s massive new moon rocket, scheduled to launch tomorrow with astronauts on board for the first time, explodes on the pad or breaks apart while accelerating through the atmosphere, the space agency has a plan:

Ignite a powerful engine mounted on the top of the crew capsule, designed to literally escape the debris of an exploding rocket, flip the capsule as it floats, then deploy parachutes to bring the astronauts back to safety.

This high-energy but delicate dance is not easy to perform reliably. Engineers and scientists across the country have spent years developing and testing this Launch Arrest System, including those at the Armstrong Flight Research Center, which has been pushing the limits of human flight for decades in Southern California’s Mojave Desert.

For the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon for the first time in half a century and eventually prepare to land humans on Mars, NASA used the center to help conduct two critical tests of the abort system in the 2010s.

In the first, NASA engineers attached the system to a mock test capsule filled with hundreds of sensors, placed it next to the shimmering white sand dunes of New Mexico, and fired it to simulate exiting the launch pad.

In the second, the crew headed to the Florida space coast, where they deployed the interception system and tested the capsule on a modified missile. They launched the missile to mimic rocket ascent conditions and triggered the abort system after breaking the sound barrier.

It is these types of extreme flight conditions that the Armstrong Flight Research Center specializes in.

Brad Flick, who retired as the center’s director on March 20, recalled a poster in front of his office depicting the Apollo moon landing: “The poster said, ‘We practiced here before we did it there.’ That’s what we’re doing.”

Southern California pioneers in human flight

Even before NASA was called NASA, its engineers, scientists, and test pilots were pushing the limits of flight in the Mojave Desert.

In the midst of present-day Edwards Air Force Base—one of the world’s largest airfields at nearly 480 square miles—a small team launched the X-plane program, a series of experimental aircraft designed to travel faster, higher, and (deliberately) weirder than ever before.

In 1947, the team became the first in the history of human flight to break the sound barrier with the X-1 aircraft.

By the early 1960s, the full-fledged flight research center had become a center for cutting-edge aeronautical research kicked into high gear by NASA’s “brightest and bravest”:

A young pilot named Neil Armstrong was guiding the rocket-powered X-15 on a series of test flights. On one flight in which Armstrong flew above the Earth’s atmosphere, he struggled to limit the intense forces experienced by the pilots and trigger a safety system designed to overshoot the runway. about 45 milesIt ends in Pasadena.

This hangar of the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center houses the Gulfstream III aircraft that the center will use to track the capsule re-entering the atmosphere during the Artemis II mission.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The center was also designing and testing mock-ups of the lunar lander; Armstrong, now the center’s namesake, later used it to practice the moon landing while still on Earth.

Meanwhile, another plane called the “flying bathtub” was taking shape in the center. The purpose of this strange-looking vehicle was to test whether they could fly without wings, rather than generating lift from the body of the aircraft. They tied the plane to something to launch it. Pontiac convertible and ripped through the nearby lake bed at 190 miles per hour.

Data obtained from the experiment informed the design The Space Shuttle. Rather than relying solely on large wings (which had to be heavy and cumbersome to withstand the extreme conditions of reentry), the shuttle generated a reasonable amount of lift with its fuselage and thus could make do with more durable, lighter wings. The necessary but perhaps inelegant design earned the Space Shuttle its own nickname: “flying brick.”

Flick wasn’t shy about telling any of the “cowboy stories on the plane” he’d heard during his nearly 40 years at the center. But he noted that this is a special breed that can handle the extremes of test pilot work and requires serious risk management across the entire team.

“The safest thing to do with an airplane is to never fly it,” Flick said. “That’s not the business we’re in. … The people on that plane, whether they’re the pilot or in the cabin, they’re counting on us to do our job well, to keep them safe and alive. That’s a responsibility we take very seriously.”

Armstrong Flight Research Center Director Brad Flick stands next to a Gulfstream III aircraft on March 18, 2026.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Testing astronauts’ last resort

The center’s experience not only pushing the boundaries of flight but also transforming its experimental aircraft into “flying laboratories” with dozens or hundreds of sensors has made it key to the success of NASA’s space missions over the years.

For the first of two Artemis abort tests, called Pad Abort-1, the Armstrong Flight Research Center team painted the test capsule; deployed sensors, flight computers, cables, and parachutes; and then we ran the entire system through a series of tests and measurements to make sure it was ready for launch.

Weight distribution throughout the complex aerial gymnastics of an abortion is extremely important: A top-heavy capsule performs differently than a bottom-heavy capsule. Unaccounted weight on one side can also destabilize the capsule. So the Armstrong team ran a series of tests involving fancy scales and slight tilting of the capsule.

Cancellations are also frequent. The engines that propel the capsule away from the doomed rocket are designed to accelerate from 0 to 500 mph (well over half the speed of sound) in just two seconds. During this process, the capsule is shaken quite aggressively. So the team subjected the capsule to vibrations in the laboratory to make sure everything was still functional after such extreme shaking. It’s better to break things on the ground than in the air.

The Armstrong team ultimately chose White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for the bumper abort test. He also oversaw the construction of the launch pad and coordinated operations for the test, which NASA successfully completed in 2010.

Years later, NASA initiated Ascent Abort-2 testing on a modified missile in preparation for Artemis launches. For this, the Armstrong team had a more focused role in designing and testing the network of hundreds of sensors that would be the eyes and ears of the agency for testing. This involved attaching the sensors to a vibration table and shaking them thoroughly to make sure they could withstand G-forces.

Environmental test technician Cryss Punteney places her hands on the Unholtz Dickie vibration table where Ascent Abort-2 components are tested at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really make a sound?” said Laurie Grindle, Armstrong assistant center manager who served as project manager for the first abort test. “If we didn’t have any instrumentation, we could release something great that looked great on video, but we wouldn’t know if it would perform well.”

The second test was completed without any problems in 2019. The teams obtained very valuable data. the video is great too.

In 2022, NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I test mission successfully reached the moon with an abort system; no need to cancel. When the crewed Artemis II mission launches to the Moon as soon as tomorrow, the abort system will be responsible for keeping astronauts alive for the first time.