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By NASA
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) teamed up June 11 and 12 to simulate emergency procedures they would use to rescue the Artemis II crew in the event of a launch emergency. The simulations, which took place off the coast of Florida and were supported by launch and flight control teams, are preparing NASA to send four astronauts around the Moon and back next year as part of the agency’s first crewed Artemis mission.
The team rehearsed procedures they would use to rescue the crew during an abort of NASA’s Orion spacecraft while the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket is still on the launch pad, as well as during ascent to space. A set of test mannequins and a representative version of Orion called the Crew Module Test Article, were used during the tests.
The launch team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flight controllers in mission control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as the mission management team, all worked together, exercising their integrated procedures for these emergency scenarios.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.NASA/Isaac Watson “Part of preparing to send humans to the Moon is ensuring our teams are ready for any scenario on launch day,” said Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program, and who also is chair of the mission management team for Artemis II. “We’re getting closer to our bold mission to send four astronauts around the Moon, and our integrated testing helps ensure we’re ready to bring them home in any scenario.”
The launch pad abort scenario was up first. The teams conducted a normal launch countdown before declaring an abort before the rocket was scheduled to launch. During a real pad emergency, Orion’s launch abort system would propel Orion and its crew a safe distance away and orient it for splashdown before the capsule’s parachutes would then deploy ahead of a safe splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson For the simulated splashdown, the test Orion with mannequins aboard was placed in the water five miles east of Kennedy. Once the launch team made the simulated pad abort call, two Navy helicopters carrying U.S. Air Force pararescuers departed nearby Patrick Space Force Base. The rescuers jumped into the water with unique DoD and NASA rescue equipment to safely approach the spacecraft, retrieve the mannequin crew, and transport them for medical care in the helicopters, just as they would do in the event of an actual pad abort during the Artemis II mission.
The next day focused on an abort scenario during ascent to space.
The Artemis recovery team set up another simulation at sea 12 miles east of Kennedy, using the Orion crew module test article and mannequins. With launch and flight control teams supporting, as was the Artemis II crew inside a simulator at Johnson, the rescue team sprung into action after receiving the simulated ascent abort call and began rescue procedures using a C-17 aircraft and U.S. Air Force pararescuers. Upon reaching the capsule, the rescuers jumped from the C-17 with DoD and NASA unique rescue gear. In an actual ascent abort, Orion would separate from the rocket in milliseconds to safely get away prior to deploying parachutes and splashing down.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for an ascent abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, June 12, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson Rescue procedures are similar to those used in the Underway Recovery Test conducted off the California coast in March. This demonstration ended with opening the hatch and extracting the mannequins from the capsule, so teams stopped without completing the helicopter transportation that would be used during a real rescue.
Exercising procedures for extreme scenarios is part of NASA’s work to execute its mission and keep the crew safe. Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars – for the benefit of all.
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By European Space Agency
Video: 01:15:00 Watch the replay of the media information session where ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun (CH) brief journalists on the key decisions made during the ESA Council meeting held at ESA Headquarters in Paris on 11–12 June 2025.
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By European Space Agency
Thanks to its newly tilted orbit around the Sun, the European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft is the first to image the Sun’s poles from outside the ecliptic plane. Solar Orbiter’s unique viewing angle will change our understanding of the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar cycle and the workings of space weather.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s F-15D research aircraft conducts a calibration flight of a shock-sensing probe near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The shock-sensing probe is designed to measure the signature and strength of shock waves in flight. The probe was validated during dual F-15 flights and will be flown behind NASA’s X-59 to measure small pressure changes caused by shock waves in support of the agency’s Quesst mission.NASA/Jim Ross High over the Mojave Desert, two NASA F-15 research jets made a series of flights throughout May to validate tools designed to measure and record the shock waves that will be produced by the agency’s X-59 quiet supersonic experimental aircraft.
The F-15s, carrying the recording tools, flew faster than the speed of sound, matching the conditions the X-59 is expected to fly. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission to gather data that can help lead to quiet commercial supersonic flight over land.
The team behind the successful test flight series operates under the Schlieren, Airborne Measurements, and Range Operations for Quesst (SCHAMROQ) project at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. There, they developed tools that will measure and visualize the X-59’s unique shock waves when it flies at Mach 1.4 and altitudes above 50,000 feet. For a typical supersonic aircraft, those shock waves would result in a sonic boom. But thanks to the X-59’s design and technologies, it will generate just a quiet thump.
Cheng Moua, engineering project manager for SCHAMROQ, described the validation flight campaign as “a graduation exercise – it brings all the pieces together in their final configuration and proves that they will work.”
NASA began to develop the tools years ago, anchored by the arrival of one of the two F-15s – an F-15D from the U.S. Air Force – a tactical aircraft delivered without research instrumentation.
“It showed up as a former war-fighting machine without a research-capable instrumentation system – no telemetry, no HD video, no data recording,” Cheng said. “Now it’s a fully instrumented research platform.”
The team used both F-15s to validate three key tools:
A shock wave-measuring device called a near-field shock-sensing probe A guidance capability known as an Airborne Location Integrating Geospatial Navigation System An Airborne Schlieren Photography System that will allow the capture of images that render visible the density changes in air caused by the X-59 Before the F-15D’s arrival, Armstrong relied on the second F-15 flown during this campaign – an F-15B typically used to test equipment, train pilots, and support other flight projects. The SCHAMROQ project used the two aircraft to successfully complete “dual ship flights,” a series of flight tests using two aircraft simultaneously. Both aircraft flew in formation carrying near-field shock-sensing probes and collected data from one another to test the probes and validate the tools under real-world conditions. The data help confirm how shock waves form and evolve during flight.
NASA Photographer Carla Thomas holds the Airborne Schlieren Photography System (ASPS), aiming it out the window in flight. The ASPS uses a photographic method called schlieren imaging, capable of visualizing changes in air density and revealing shock waves and air flow patterns around moving objects. The system is one of several tools validated during recent dual F-15 flights at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in support of NASA’s Quesst mission, ahead of the X-59’s first flight. NASA/Carla Thomas Keeping Things ALIGNed
For the Quesst mission, the F-15D will lead data-gathering efforts using the onboard probe, while the F-15B will serve as the backup. When flown behind the X-59, the probe will help measure small pressure changes caused by the shock waves and validate predictions made years ago when the plane’s design was first created.
The schlieren photography systems aboard the F-15s will provide Quesst researchers with crucial data. Other tools, like computer simulations that predict airflow and wind tunnel tests are helpful, but schlieren imagery shows real-world airflow, especially in tricky zones like the engine and air inlet.
For that system to work correctly, the two aircraft will need to be precisely positioned during the test flights. Their pilots will be using a NASA-developed software tool called the Airborne Location Integrating Geospatial Navigation System (ALIGNS).
“ALIGNS acts as a guidance system for the pilots,” said Troy Robillos, a NASA researcher who led development of ALIGNS. “It shows them where to position the aircraft to either probe a shock wave at a specific point or to get into the correct geometry for schlieren photography.”
The schlieren system involves a handheld high-speed camera with a telescopic lens that captures hundreds of frames per second and visualizes changes in air density – but only if it can use the sun as a backdrop.
Two NASA F-15 aircraft sit on the ramp at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, in Edwards, California, ahead of dual F-15 flights that validated the integration of three tools – the Airborne Schlieren Photography System (ASPS), the Airborne Location Integrating Geospatial Navigation System (ALIGNS), and shock-sensing probe. Together these tools will measure and visualize the shock waves generated by NASA’s X-59.NASA/Genaro Vavuris “The photographer holds the camera to their chest, aiming out the side of the cockpit canopy at the sun, while the pilot maneuvers through a 100-foot-wide target zone,” said Edward Haering, a NASA aerospace engineer who leads research on schlieren. “If the sun leaves the frame, we lose that data, so we fly multiple passes to make sure we capture the shot.”
Aligning two fast-moving aircraft against the backdrop of the sun is the most challenging part. The photographer must capture the aircraft flying across the center of the sun, and even the slightest shift can affect the shot and reduce the quality of the data.
“It’s like trying to take a photo through a straw while flying supersonic,” Robillos said.
But with ALIGNS, the process is much more accurate. The software runs on ruggedized tablets and uses GPS data from both aircraft to calculate when the aircraft are in position for probing and to capture schlieren imagery. Giving pilots real-time instructions, enabling them to achieve precise positioning.
The X-59 team’s validation milestone for the schlieren imaging and other systems confirms that NASA’s core tools for measuring shock waves are ready to study the X-59 in flight, checking the aircraft’s unique acoustics to confirm its quieter sonic “thump.”
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactNicolas Cholulanicolas.h.cholula@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Aeronautics Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Ames Research Center Commercial Supersonic Technology Glenn Research Center Integrated Aviation Systems Program Langley Research Center Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Quesst (X-59) Quesst: The Vehicle Supersonic Flight Explore More
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