Thu, Dec 22, 2011
Test Vehicle Dropped From A C-130 At 25,000 Feet
NASA successfully conducted a drop test of the Orion crew
vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert Tuesday in
preparation for its orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry
astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency
abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a
safe re-entry and landing.
A C-130 plane dropped the Orion test article from an altitude of
25,000 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Orion's
drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 and 20,000 feet,
followed by the pilot parachutes, which then deployed two main
landing parachutes. This particular drop test examined how Orion
would land under two possible failure scenarios.
Orion's parachutes are designed to open in stages, which is
called reefing, to manage the stresses on the parachutes after they
are deployed. The reefing stages allow the parachutes to
sequentially open, first at 54 percent of the parachutes' full
diameter, and then at 73 percent. This test examined how the
parachutes would perform if the second part of the sequence was
skipped.
The second scenario was a failure to deploy one of Orion's three
main parachutes, requiring the spacecraft to land with only two.
Orion landed on the desert floor at a speed of almost 33 feet per
second, which is the maximum designed touchdown speed of the
spacecraft. Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous
parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for
NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. Lessons learned from this
experience have improved Orion's parachute system. (Image provided
by NASA)
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