Typical Flight Paths
With launch from Christmas Island, several flight corridors for AURORA have been identified illustrating the safe nature of the over-flight paths and hardware jettison drop zones.

The easterly flight path is used to put satellites into low inclination orbit (approximately 11 degrees inclination). This flight path passes between Indonesia and Australia and is designed to provide a minimum clearance of about 30 km from all land.

Two other flight paths are identified, one intended to support launch to moderate inclination orbits (45-65-degrees). In this case, ascent profiles are tailored to ensure the ocean impact of expended hardware. The third flight path case is intended for sun-synchronous orbit injection. A similar, open ocean flight path occurs for injection into polar orbit as well.

During flight, parts of the rocket fall in predetermined "drop zones". With AURORA, the jettisoned hardware includes the four strap-on boosters, Stage -2, the payload fairing halves, and the third stage (for suborbital start missions).

The figure above shows the approximate locations of the drop zones associated with geosynchronous transfer and low earth orbit launches. A maximum of four drop zones will be used in any single mission. The rocket used for each mission is specially chosen so that the stages fall in open ocean. For suborbital-ignition missions, stage 3 will largely burn up, and its drop zone is not shown.

AURORA is being designed favouring maximum safety precautions relative to the impact of jettisoned hardware. As shown here, impact is assured to occur in ocean regions that will be closed to traffic during launch operations.

Proposed drop zone

Hardware impact zone