I was wondering about the history of launch escape systems after the flawless SpaceX/NASA test test yesterday. I also wondered how many times such systems had been used by manned crew.
With respect to the first question I guess the Wikipedia entry is quite useful and very interesting.
Launch Escape Systems
Despite many mishaps both in the USA and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation with unmanned or test rockets where the LES was fired intentionally or not, only the Soviet Union has had a crew egress their launch vehicle in this way. In a second incident the Russian Federation had a crew return to earth safely without the LES after separation failure. In the latter case one of the astronauts/cosmonauts was an American en route to the International Space Station.
The first usage with a manned mission occurred during the attempt to launch Soyuz T-10-1 on September 26, 1983. The rocket caught fire, just before launch, and the LES carried the crew capsule clear, seconds before the rocket exploded. The crew were subjected to an acceleration of 14 to 17 g (140 to 170 m/s2) for five seconds and were badly bruised. Reportedly, the capsule reached an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) and landed 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) from the launch pad.
In 2018 the crew of Soyuz MS-10 separated from their launch vehicle after a booster rocket separation failure occurred at an altitude of 50 km during the ascent. However, at this point in the mission the LES had already been ejected and was not used to separate the crew capsule from the rest of the launch vehicle. Backup motors were utilized to separate the crew capsule resulting in the crew landing safely and uninjured approximately 19 minutes after launch.
