Solar Atmospheres of Western Pennsylvania, Hermitage, Pa., announces that it vacuum heat-treated the titanium manifold in the Launch Abort System of the NASA Orion spacecraft launched in December. The large manifold housing, made of Ti6AI4V, is designed to rapidly propel astronauts away from the main rocket in case of a catastrophic explosion or any other unexpected event. Once fired, the LAS will accelerate the astronauts away from the main rocket at forces up to 10 to 15 g’s.
“The welded component needed to be homogenously treated to ensure peak performance in the event the LAS would be needed,” says Michael Johnson, Sales Manager. “Precise temperature monitoring of the part and uniformity of the furnace was the easy part. The challenging part was avoiding a eutectic reaction with the furnace tooling, while minimizing distortion. At the end of the day, both Solar and its customer had a process that proved to be successful on the prototype and the three additional manifolds that followed.”
