Boilerplate (spaceflight)


A boilerplate spacecraft, also known as a mass simulator, is a nonfunctional craft or payload that is used to test various configurations and basic size, load, and handling characteristics of rocket launch vehicles. It is far less expensive to build multiple, full-scale, non-functional boilerplate spacecraft than it is to develop the full system. In this way, boilerplate spacecraft allow components and aspects of cutting-edge aerospace projects to be tested while detailed contracts for the final project are being negotiated. These tests may be used to develop procedures for mating a spacecraft to its launch vehicle, emergency access and egress, maintenance support activities, and various transportation processes.
Boilerplate spacecraft are most commonly used to test crewed spacecraft; for example, in the early 1960s, NASA performed many tests using boilerplate Apollo spacecraft atop Saturn I rockets, and Mercury spacecraft atop Atlas rockets. The engine-less Space Shuttle Enterprise was used as a boilerplate to test launch stack assembly and transport to the launch pad. NASA's now-canceled Constellation program and ongoing Artemis program used boilerplate Orion spacecraft for various testing.

Mercury boilerplates

Mercury boilerplates were manufactured "in-house" by NASA Langley Research Center technicians prior to McDonnell Aircraft 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 using the Little Joe rockets.

Etymology

The term boilerplate originated from the use of boilerplate steel for the construction of test articles/mock-ups. Historically, during the development of the Little Joe series of 7 launch vehicles, there was only one actual boilerplate capsule and it was called such since its conical section was made of steel at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. This capsule was used in a beach abort test, and then subsequently used in the LJ1A flight. However, the term subsequently came to be used for all the prototype capsules. This usage was technically incorrect, as those other capsules were not made of boilerplate, but the boilerplate term had effectively been genericized.

Notable events

  • 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 instrumentation 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 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 flotation and recovery system procedures, and to evaluate the entire capsule and rocket characters and system controls.
  • 1960 May 9 – Beach Abort test with a launch escape system 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 launched occurred with an apogee of ; first sub-orbital uncrewed flight.

    Photos

Gemini boilerplates

There were seven specifically named Gemini boilerplates: BP-1, 2, 3, 3A, 4, 5 and 201.
Boilerplate 3A had functional doors and had multi-uses for testing watertightness, flotation collars, and egress procedures. Other boilerplates were designated FA-1A, MSC 312, MSC 313 and MSC-307.

Photos

Apollo boilerplates

NASA created a variety of Apollo boilerplates.

Launch escape system tests (LES)

Apollo boilerplate command modules were used for tests of the launch escape system jettison tower rockets and procedures:
  • BP-6 with Pad Abort Test-1 – LES pad abort test from launch pad; with photo.
  • BP-23A with Pad Abort Test-2 – LES pad abort test of near Block-I CM; with photo.
  • BP-23 with Mission A-002 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 pad-abort performance at White Sands Missile Range.
  • BP-9 with mission AS-105 test flight, Micro Meteoroid Dynamic Test; not recovered.
  • BP-12 with mission A-001 test flight, now at former NASA Facility, Downey, California to test the LES transonic abort flight performance at White Sands Missile Range.
  • BP-13 with mission AS-101 test flight, not recovered.
  • BP-14 with environmental control system 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 AS-102 test flight, not recovered.
  • BP-16 with mission AS-103 test flight, another Micro Meteoroid test, not recovered.
  • BP-19A – VHF antenna, parachute drop tests; now at the Columbia Memorial Space Center
  • BP-22 with mission A-003 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.
  • BP-25 Command Module – Water recovery test, at Fort Worth Museum of Transportation
  • BP-26 with mission AS-104 test flight – another micro meterioid test.
  • BP-27 command 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.
  • BP-28A – Impact tests
  • BP-29 – Uprighting drop tests at Downey, CA, Oct. 30, 1964, on display at Barringer Crater, Arizona.
  • BP-30 – Swing arm tests; currently on display at Kennedy Space Center's Apollo/Saturn V Center.

    Specific Apollo BP units

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 uprighting procedure when the Apollo lands upside down in the water. The sequence of the bags inflating caused the capsule to roll and upright itself.
This McDonnell boilerplate is now on loan to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, 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-person Skylab Rescue vehicle. With these two conversions, astronauts could train for those special missions. It was finally transferred from NASA to the Smithsonian in 1977, and is displayed now at the Udvar-Hazy Center with the flotation collar and bags that were attached to Columbia at the end of its historic mission.

BP-1210

BP-1210 was used in landing and recovery training and to test flotation devices. It is on display outside the Stafford Air & Space Museum.

BP-1220/1228 Series

The purpose of this series design was to simulate the weight and other external physical characteristics of the Apollo command module. These prototypes were in the 9000 lb range for both laboratory water tanks and ocean tests. The experiments tested flotation 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.
BP-1224
BP-1224 was a component-level flammability-test program to test for design decisions on selection and application of non-metallic materials. Boilerplate configuration comparisons with command and 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.
BP-1227
Details regarding this test capsule are not clear, but most likely it was lost at sea somewhere between the Azores and the Bay of Biscay in early 1969, and recovered in June 1969 off Gibraltar by the Soviet fishing trawler Apatit, transferred to the port of Murmansk in the Soviet Union, and returned to the US in September 1970 by the USCGC Southwind. It is now located in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a time capsule.
See .
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 Coast Guard – both say that it was lost by an ARRS unit training in recovery procedures. 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."