Boilerplate (rocketry) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The term boilerplate in rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

ry refers to a nonfunctional craft, system, or payload which is used to test various configurations and basic size, load, and handling characteristics. It is far less expensive to build multiple, full-scale, non-functional boilerplate spacecraft

Spacecraft

A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....

than it is to develop the full system (design, test, redesign, and launch). In this way, boilerplate spacecraft allow components and aspects of cutting-edge aerospace

Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...

projects to be tested while detailed contracts for the final project are being negotiated. During these tests, procedures are developed in mating boilerplates to rocket launch vehicle

Launch vehicle

In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from the Earth's surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad and other infrastructure....

s along with emergency access and egress, maintenance support activities, and various transportation processes.

Boilerplate spacecraft are most commonly used to test manned spacecraft; for example, in the early 1960s, NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

performed many tests of boilerplates. Such boilerplates were made for Apollo spacecraft

Apollo spacecraft

The Apollo spacecraft was composed of five combined parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth...

atop Saturn I

Saturn I

The Saturn I was the United States' first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a clustered lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make...

rockets, and Mercury spacecraft

Project Mercury

In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...

atop Atlas rockets (for example Big Joe 1

Big Joe 1

Big Joe 1 launched an unmanned boilerplate Mercury capsule from Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 9, 1959. The objective of the Big Joe program was to test the Mercury spacecraft ablating heat shield...

). Space Shuttle Enterprise

Space Shuttle Enterprise

The Space Shuttle Enterprise was the first Space Shuttle orbiter. It was built for NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program to perform test flights in the atmosphere. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of spaceflight...

was used as both a ground test boilerplate spacecraft and an atmospheric flight test vehicle. The development of NASA's Project Constellation

Project Constellation

Constellation Program is a human spaceflight program within NASA, the space agency of the United States. The stated goals of the program were to gain significant experience in operating away from Earth's environment, develop technologies needed for opening the space frontier, and conduct...

used boilerplate Orion spacecraft atop an Ares I

Ares I

Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation Program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars...

rocket for initial testing.

Mercury boilerplates

Mercury boilerplates were manufactured "in-house" by NASA Langley Research Center technicians prior to McDonnell Aircraft

McDonnell Aircraft

The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was founded on July 16, 1939 by James Smith McDonnell, and was best known for its military fighters, including the F-4 Phantom II, and manned spacecraft including the Mercury capsule...

Company building the Mercury spacecraft. The boilerplate capsules were designed and used to test spacecraft recovery systems, and escape tower and rocket motors. Formal tests were done on the test pad at Langley and at Wallops Island

Wallops Island

Wallops Island is a island off the east coast of Virginia, part of the barrier islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America.It is located in Accomack County, Virginia...

using the Little Joe rockets.

A summary of Mercury boilerplates can be found at A Field Guide to American Spacecraft.
The term boilerplate has been wrongly used since the Little Joe series of 7 launch vehicles. There was only one boilerplate capsule and it was called such, as its conical section was made of steel at the Norfolk Naval shipyard. It was used in a beach abort test, and then subsequently used in the LJ1A flight. The term was used thereafter for the prototype capsules, which in their own right were nearly as complicated as the orbital capsules.

Notable events

Section sources.

1959 July 22 - First successful pad abort flight test with a functional escape tower attached to a Mercury Boilerplate.
1959 July 28 - A Mercury Boilerplate with instruments to measure sound pressure levels and vibrations from the Little Joe test rocket and Grand Central abort rocket/escape tower.
1959 September 9 - A Big Joe Atlas boilerplate Mercury (BJ-1) was successfully launched and flown from Cape Canaveral. This test flight was to determine the performance of the heat shield and heat transfer to the boilerplate, to observe flight dynamics of boilerplate during re-entry into the South Atlantic, to perform and evaluate capsule floatation and recovery system procedures, and to evaluate the entire capsule and rocket characters and system controls.
1960 May 9 - Beach Abort
Beach Abort
The Beach Abort was an unmanned test in NASA's Project Mercury, of the Mercury spacecraft Launch Escape System. Objectives of the test were a performance evaluation of the escape system, the parachute and landing system, and recovery operations in an off-the-pad abort situation. The test took place...

test with a Little Joe rocket was successful.
1961 February 25 - A successful drop test of the Mercury Boilerplate spacecraft fitted with impact skirt, straps and cables, and a heat shield.
1961 March 24 - A successful Mercury-Redstone BD
Mercury-Redstone BD
Mercury-Redstone BD was an unmanned booster development flight in the U.S. Mercury program. It was launched on March 24, 1961 from Launch Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida...

(MR-3) launched occurred with an apogee of 181 km (112 mi); first sub-orbital unmanned flight.

Photos

Gemini boilerplates

There were seven Gemini boilerplates: BP-1, 2, 3, 3A, 4, 5, and 201.
Gemini Boilerplate 3A had functional doors and had multi-uses for testing watertightness, flotation collars, and egress procedures.

Photos

Apollo boilerplates

NASA created a variety of Apollo boilerplates. A list of them can be found in Apollo Section of A Field Guide to American Spacecraft.

Launch escape system tests (LES)

Apollo boilerplates were used in the Launch Escape System (LES)

Launch escape system

A Launch Escape System is a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency. Since the escape rockets are above the crew module, an LES typically uses separate nozzles which are...

for tests of the jettison tower rockets and procedures:

BP-6 with Pad Abort Test-1
Pad Abort Test-1 (Apollo)
Pad Abort Test 1 was the first abort test of the Apollo spacecraft on November 7, 1963.-Objectives:Pad Abort Test 1 was a mission to investigate the effects on the Apollo spacecraft during an abort from the pad. The launch escape system had to be capable of pulling the spacecraft away from a...

- LES pad abort test from launch pad; with photo.
BP-23A with Pad Abort Test-2
Pad Abort Test-2 (Apollo)
Pad Abort Test 2 was the follow-on second abort test to Pad Abort Test 1 of the Apollo spacecraft.-Objectives:Apollo Pad Abort Test 2 was the fifth of six unmanned Apollo missions that flight tested the capability of the launch escape system to provide for safe recovery of Apollo crews under...

- LES pad abort test of near Block-I CM; with photo.
BP-23 with Mission A-002
A-002
A-002 was the third abort test of the Apollo spacecraft.-Objectives:Mission A-002 was the third in the series of abort tests to demonstrate that the launch system would perform satisfactorily under selected critical abort conditions...

Test Flight - LES test of canards, Oct.29-Nov.5, 1964.
BP-27 with LES-015 - Dynamic tests.

Boilerplate tests

BP-1 - Water impact tests
BP-2 - Flotation tests storage
BP-3 - Parachute tests
BP-6,-6B, - PA-1, later Parachute drop test vehicle, and LES pad abort flight test to demonstrate launch escape system's (LES) pad abort(PA) performance at White Sands Missile Range.
BP-9 with Mission A-105(SA-10) Test Flight, Micro Meteoroid Dynamic Test; not recovered.
BP-12 with Mission A-001
A-001
-Objectives:Mission A-001 was the second in the series of tests conducted to demonstrate that the launch escape system could safely remove the command module under critical abort conditions...

Test Flight, now at former NASA Facility, Downey, CA to test the LES transonic abort flight performance at White Sands Missile Range.
BP-13 with Mission A-101(SA-6) Test Flight, not recovered
BP-14 with environmental control system
Environmental Control System
The environmental control system of an aircraft provides air supply, thermal control and cabin pressurization for the crew and passengers...

tests, Oct. 22-29, 1964, consisted of Command Module 14, Service Module 3, Launch Escape System 14, and Saturn Launch Adapters.
BP-15 with Mission A-102(SA-7) Test Flight, not recovered.
BP-16 with Mission A-103 Test Flight, another Micro Meteoroid test, not recovered.
BP-19A - VHF antenna, parachute drop tests; now at the Columbia Memorial Space Center (former NASA Facility, Downey, CA)
BP-22 with Mission A-003
A-003
A-003 was the fourth abort test of the Apollo spacecraft.-Objectives:Apollo mission A-003 was the fourth mission to demonstrate the abort capability of the Apollo launch escape system...

Test Flight; boilerplate on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
BP-23 - LES high-dynamic-pressure abort flight performance tests at White Sands Missile Range.
BP-23A - LES pad abort flight performance tests with Canard, BPC, and major sequencing changes at White Sands Missile Range, now displayed with SA-500D at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....

.

BP-25 Command Module (CM) - Water recovery test, at Fort Worth Museum of TransportationSee BP-25 photo
BP-26 with Mission A-104(SA-8) Test Flight - another Micro Meterioid test.
BP-27 CM and Service Module with LES-16 - Stack and engine gimbal test. Now on display atop the vertical Saturn V at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....

.
BP-28A - Impact tests
BP-29 - Uprighting drop tests at Downey, CA
Downey, California
Downey is a city located in southeast Los Angeles County, California, United States, southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city is best known as the birthplace of the Apollo space program, and is the city where folk singer Karen Carpenter lived and died...

, Oct. 30, 1964, on display at Barringer Crater, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
BP-30 - Swing arm tests; currently on display at Kennedy Space Center's Apollo/Saturn V Center

BP-1101A

BP-1101A was used in numerous tests to develop spacecraft recovery equipment and procedures. Specifically, 1101A tested the air bags as part of the "up-righting" procedure when the Apollo lands upside down in the water. The sequence of the bags inflating caused the capsule to roll and up-right itself.

This McDonnell boilerplate is now on loan to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum

Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum

The Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum is located on the former grounds of Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. The museum, which opened in 1994, is housed in the Hangar #1 built in 1939. The museum preserves the history of Lowry AFB's operations from 1938 to 1994 in its...

, Denver, Colorado, from the Smithsonian. BP-1101A has an external painted marking of AP.5. Examination of the interior in 2006 revealed large heavy steel ingots. After further research, a new paint scheme was applied in June 2007.

BP-1102A

BP-1102 was used for water egress trainer for all Apollo flights, including by the crew of Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission. It was also adapted for mock-up interior components and used by astronauts to practice routine and emergency exits from the spacecraft.

It was then modified again where the interior was set up to be configured either as Apollo/Soyuz or a proposed five-man Skylab Rescue

Skylab Rescue

Brand flew in 1975 during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project as command module pilot, later commanding three Space Shuttle missions . Lind would wait another decade before he flew as a mission specialist on STS-51-B in 1985.-External links:* * * * * * *...

vehicle. With these two conversion, astronauts could train for those special missions. It was finally transferred from NASA to the Smithsonian in 1977, and is displayed now at the Hazy Center with the flotation collar and bags that were attached to Columbia at the end of its historic mission.

BP-1220/1228 Series

The purpose of this series design was to simulate the weight and other external physical characteristics of the Apollo

Apollo spacecraft

command module. These prototypes were in the 9000 lb range for both laboratory water tanks and ocean tests. The experiments tested floatation collars, collar installations, and buoyancy characteristics. The Navy trained their recovery personnel for ocean collar installation and shipboard retrieval procedures. These boilerplates rarely had internal equipment. See BP-1220 photo.

BP-1224
BP-1224 was a Component level Flammability Test Program to test for design decisions on selection and application of nonmetallic materials. Boilerplate configuration comparisons with Command Service Module 2TV-1 and 101 were performed by North American. The NASA Review Board decided on February 5, 1967, that the boilerplate configuration had determined a reasonable "worst case" configuration, after more than 1,000 tests were performed.
See BP-1224 photo set.

BP-1227
This was lost in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

in early 1970, recovered by a Hungarian vessel, transferred to the Soviet Union, and returned to the US in September 1970 by the USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280)

USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280)

USCGC Southwind was a Wind-class icebreaker that served in the United States Coast Guard as USCGC Southwind , the Soviet Navy as the Admiral Makarov, the United States Navy as USS Atka and again in the U.S...

. It is now located in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

as a time capsule

Time capsule

A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...

.
See BP-1227 photo.
The only certainties about this capsule are that it was returned to the United States at Murmansk early in September 1970 during a visit by the USCG Southwind who returned it to the Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia. There it remained until title was passed to the Smithsonian in April 1976 when it was passed on to Grand Rapids, Michigan to serve as a time capsule. Two official sources – the US Navy and the US Coastguard – both say that it was lost by an ARRS unit training in recovery procedures. Where it was lost is not certain, but the most likely location is the Bay of Biscay where it was recovered by a Russian trawler. A contemporary account of its return quotes a NASA spokesman as saying, “ … as far as NASA can determine the object… the Navy lost two years ago.”. When BP-1227 was lost ranges from 1968 to 1970 depending on which account one reads. This uncertainty may be due to a Russian account that claims there is an agreement between the Russians and the US to keep details secret until 2021.

Space Shuttle OV-101 in boilerplate configuration

First in March 1978 at the Marshall Space Flight Center

Marshall Space Flight Center

The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...

and then again in June 1979, the Space Shuttle Enterprise

Space Shuttle Enterprise

was fitted together with an external tank and two inert solid rocket motors in a test-bed or boilerplate configuration. The STS-1

STS-1

STS-1 was the first orbital flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. Space Shuttle Columbia launched on 12 April 1981, and returned to Earth on 14 April, having orbited the Earth 37 times during the 54.5-hour mission. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project...

preliminary mission test program consisted of vibration tests in a horizontal mode at the Marshall Center, and then in a vertical launch configuration on Launch Pad 39A

Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39

Launch Complex 39 is a rocket launch site at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, USA. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built for the Apollo program, and later modified to support Space Shuttle operations. NASA began modifying LC-39 in 2007 to...

at Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. In 1985, the boilerplate configuration was used to test the Air Force shuttle facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base

Vandenberg Air Force Base

Vandenberg Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base, located approximately northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command ....

, including a full mating on the SLC-6

Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 6

Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is a launch pad and support area. It was originally designed for the launching of the Titan III in support of the cancelled Manned Orbiting Laboratory, and was later rebuilt for the Space Shuttle, which also never used it due to...

launch pad.

Ares launch vehicles

NASA’s future space flights to the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

were planned for 2015. These flights were to be based upon the Orion

Orion (spacecraft)

Orion is a spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin for NASA, the space agency of the United States. Orion development began in 2005 as part of the Constellation program, where Orion would fulfill the function of a Crew Exploration Vehicle....

spacecraft and its Ares

Ares (rocket)

In terms of rocketry, Ares could mean:*Three Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles under development for NASA's Project Constellation program:**The Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle , designed to launch the Orion ....

launch vehicle

Launch vehicle

. The Shuttle

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

s were retired in 2011. The Orion boilerplates were planned to be used between 2008 and 2014 with the Ares I

Ares I

Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation Program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars...

and the heavy-lift Ares V

Ares V

The Ares V was the planned cargo launch component of the Constellation program, which was to have replaced the Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2011. Ares V was also planned to carry supplies for a human presence on Mars...

launch vehicles, both of which were slated to launch initially from NASA’s Pad 39B site at the Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center

in Florida.

Development

The construction of the first Orion boilerplate, will be a basic mockup prototype

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

to test the assembling sequences and launch procedures at NASA’s Langley Research Center

Langley Research Center

Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...

while Lockheed aerospace engineers assemble the first rocket motors for the spacecraft’s escape tower. The first boilerplate will go to Dryden Flight Research Center

Dryden Flight Research Center

The Dryden Flight Research Center , located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. Dryden, a prominent aeronautical engineer who at the time of his death in 1965 was NASA's deputy administrator...

at Edwards, California, for integration of Lockheed's avionics and NASA's developmental flight instrumentation prior to shipment to New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range is a rocket range of almost in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR includes the and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range...

for the first Orion pad abort test

Pad abort test

A pad abort test is a test of a launch escape system to determine how well the system could get the crew of a spacecraft to safety in an emergency on the launch pad.- Project Mercury :Section sources....

(PA-1) in 2009. On November 20, 2008 a complete test of the abort rockets took place in Utah. PA-1 is the first of the six test events in Orion Abort Flight Test subproject. Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

Corp. was awarded the contract to build Orion on Aug. 31, 2006.

Other boilerplates will be used to test thermal, electromagnetic, audio, mechanical vibration conditions and research studies. These tests for the Orion spacecraft will be done at Plum Brook Station in the agency’s Ohio-based Glenn Research Center

Glenn Research Center

NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center, located within the cities of Brook Park, Cleveland and Fairview Park, Ohio between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Cleveland Metroparks's Rocky River Reservation, and has other subsidiary facilities in Ohio...

. The first boilerplate Orions will launched/tested as early as 2008.

Pathfinder

On March 2, 2009, the LAS Pathfinder began its transfer from the Langley Research Center to the White Sands Missile Range, for first PA-1 launch tests. Pathfinder is the combination of the Orion boilerplate and the LAS module.

Post-landing Orion Recovery Test (PORT)

On March 23, 2009 a Navy-built Orion boilerplate began the PORT Tests in Navy test facilities and then sea testing near the Kennedy Space Center.

Photos

Project Constellation

The Orion-Ares configuration is known as a part of NASA's Project Constellation
Project Constellation
Constellation Program is a human spaceflight program within NASA, the space agency of the United States. The stated goals of the program were to gain significant experience in operating away from Earth's environment, develop technologies needed for opening the space frontier, and conduct...

. This project's plan is to send humans to the Moon, Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

, and other destinations in the solar system

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

. Its base components will consist of the Launch Abort System, the Crew Module, the Service Module, and the Spacecraft Adapter.

External links

NASA Official Site
White Sands Missile Range Official Site
AAIA: Orion Boilerplate
NASA Spaceflight: MLAS - the alternative Orion Launch Abort System gains momentum (Orion boilerplate being developed)
HobbySpace: BP-6 now in California
List of Mercury Boilerplates
Orion Boilerplate

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Mercury boilerplates

Notable events

Photos

Gemini boilerplates

Photos

Apollo boilerplates

Launch escape system tests (LES)

Boilerplate tests

BP-1101A

BP-1102A

BP-1220/1228 Series

Space Shuttle OV-101 in boilerplate configuration

Ares launch vehicles

Development

Pathfinder

Post-landing Orion Recovery Test (PORT)

Photos

Project Constellation

See also

External links