Cabin Escape System: a way to ensure crew safety during suborbital flights

This paper deals with the conceptual design of a cabin escape system to be implemented on a spaceplane aimed at performing suborbital parabolic flights. After the explanation of the reasons why an escape system is so interesting for this type of vehicle, a design methodology and the related support tool-chain are proposed and applied to the definition of an escape system for a Single Stage suborbital transportation system taken as reference case study. During this process, specific attention is paid to the impact of onboard systems integration on the architecture and to the sizing of the escape system and of the entire vehicle. Furthermore, the possibility of exploiting this system during the different phases of the mission have been evaluated and eventually, a preliminary impact risk analysis is reported.