Flight
On November 7, 1963, an abort signal was sent to the LES at 09:00:01 local time. This initiated a sequence in which the main solid rockets fired to move the spacecraft and smaller attitude rockets fired so that the spacecraft moved laterally (at Cape Canaveral this lateral movement would be toward the ocean).
The LES separated after fifteen seconds with the spacecraft now on a ballistic trajectory. The parachute system worked perfectly with the drogue chute stabilizing the spacecraft, followed by the three main parachutes that slowed the descent to a leisurely 26 kilometers per hour.
The only problems found with the flight were that the LES rockets had left a soot deposit on the spacecraft exterior and the stability of the spacecraft was less than predicted.
Read more about this topic: Pad Abort Test-1 (Apollo)
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“When the flight is not high the fall is not heavy.”
—Chinese proverb.