Etymology

The term boilerplate originated from the use of boilerplate steel^[3] 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 (which in their own right were nearly as complicated as the orbital capsules). This usage was technically incorrect, as those other capsules were not made of boilerplate, but the boilerplate term had effectively been genericized.^{[citation needed]}

Notable events

Section sources.^[4][5]

• 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 (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 flotation and recovery system procedures, and to evaluate the entire capsule and rocket characters and system controls.^[6]
• 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.^[7]
• 1961 March 24 – A successful Mercury-Redstone BD (MR-3) launched occurred with an apogee of 181 km (112 mi); first sub-orbital uncrewed flight.^[7]

Photos

Photos

Launch escape system tests (LES)

Apollo boilerplate command modules were used for tests of the launch escape system (LES) jettison tower rockets and procedures:

• BP-6 with Pad Abort Test-1 – LES pad abort test from launch pad; with photo.^{[citation needed]}
• BP-23A with Pad Abort Test-2 – LES pad abort test of near Block-I CM; with photo.^{[citation needed]}
• BP-23 with Mission A-002 Test Flight – LES test of canards, Oct. 29-Nov. 5, 1964.^[10]
• BP-27 with LES-015 – Dynamic tests.^[11]

Boilerplate tests

• BP-1 – Water impact tests^[11]
• BP-2 – Flotation tests storage^[11]
• BP-3 – Parachute tests^[11]
• BP-6,-6B, – PA-1, later parachute drop test vehicle,^[11] and LES pad abort flight test to demonstrate launch escape system's pad-abort performance at White Sands Missile Range.^[12]
• BP-9 with mission AS-105 (SA-10) test flight, Micro Meteoroid Dynamic Test; not recovered.^[11]
• BP-12 with mission A-001 test flight, now at former NASA Facility, Downey, CA^[10] to test the LES transonic abort flight performance at White Sands Missile Range.^[12]
• BP-13 with mission AS-101 (SA-6) test flight, not recovered.^[11]
• BP-14 with environmental control system tests, Oct. 22–29, 1964,^[10] consisted of command module 14, service module 3, launch escape system 14, and Saturn launch adapters.^[11]
• BP-15 with mission AS-102 (SA-7) test flight, not recovered.^[11]
• BP-16 with mission AS-103 (SA-9) test flight, another Micro Meteoroid test, not recovered.^[11]
• BP-19A – VHF antenna, parachute drop tests;^[11] now at the Columbia Memorial Space Center (former NASA Facility, Downey, CA)^[13]
• BP-22 with mission A-003 test flight; boilerplate on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX^[14]
• BP-23 – LES high-dynamic-pressure abort flight performance tests at White Sands Missile Range.^[12]
• BP-23A – LES pad-abort flight performance tests with Canard, BPC, and major sequencing changes at White Sands Missile Range,^[12] now displayed with SA-500D at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.^[11]
• BP-25 Command Module (CM) – Water recovery test, at Fort Worth Museum of Transportation^[11](See BP-25 photo)
• BP-26 with mission AS-104 (SA-8) test flight – another micro meterioid test.^[11]
• BP-27 command and service module with LES-16 – stack and engine gimbal test.^[11] Now on display atop the vertical Saturn V at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.^[15]
• BP-28A – Impact tests^[11]
• BP-29 – Uprighting drop tests at Downey, CA, Oct. 30, 1964, on display at Barringer Crater, Arizona.^[10][11]
• BP-30 – Swing arm tests; currently on display at Kennedy Space Center's Apollo/Saturn V Center.^[11]

Specific Apollo BP units

Facilities Test Article

In 1977, the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) constructed a simple steel and wood orbiter mockup to be used in fit check activities for various elements of the infrastructure needed to support the Space Shuttle, including roadway clearances and crane capabilities, as well as for testing in various buildings and structures used as part of the program, both at the MSFC and at the Kennedy Space Center. The mockup was designed to be the approximate size, shape and weight of an actual orbiter, and allowed these initial tests to be undertaken without using the far more expensive and delicate prototype orbiter, Enterprise.^[30] Following its use as a test article, the mockup was stored until 1983, when it was refurbished and modified to more closely resemble an actual orbiter, before being displayed in Tokyo.^[31]

Structural Test Article

The Structural Test Article was built as a test vehicle intended for use in initial vibration testing to simulate entire flights.^[32] The STA was built as essentially a complete orbiter airframe, but with a mockup of the crew compartment installed, and the thermal insulation only fitted to the forward fuselage.^[33] The simulation testing of the STA was undertaken over the course of eleven months following its rollout in February 1978; at the time, it was intended that the prototype orbiter Enterprise would be converted into a full flight ready model, but the cost of undertaking this work, along with a number of design changes that had taken place between Enterprise being rolled out, and the final construction of the first operational orbiter, Columbia, meant that it was decided instead to upgrade the STA into a flight model. This began following the end of the STA testing in January 1979, with the completed orbiter, named as Challenger, rolled out in June 1982.^[32]

Prototype

Development

The construction of the first Orion boilerplate,^[39] was a basic mockup prototype to test the assembling sequences and launch procedures at NASA's Langley Research Center while Lockheed aerospace engineers assemble the first rocket motors for the spacecraft's escape tower. The first boilerplate went to Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California, for integration of Lockheed's avionics and NASA's developmental flight instrumentation^[40] prior to shipment to New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range for the first Orion pad abort test (PA-1) in 2009. On November 20, 2008 a complete test of the abort rockets took place in Utah.^[41] PA-1 is the first of the six test events in Orion Abort Flight Test subproject. Lockheed Martin Corp. was awarded the contract to build Orion on August 31, 2006.^{[citation needed]}

Other boilerplates would be used to test thermal, electromagnetic, audio, mechanical vibration conditions and research studies. These tests for the Orion spacecraft would be done at Plum Brook Station in the agency's Ohio-based Glenn Research Center.^[42][43]

Photos