Thu, May 24, 2007
Will Provide Recovery Systems For Falcon 9
Airborne Systems told ANN this week its Space and Recovery
Systems Engineering team (formerly Irvin Aerospace) has been
selected to provide Recovery Systems for Space Exploration
Technologies Corp.'s (SpaceX) Falcon 9/Dragon system. These systems
will support government and commercial launch operations and the
NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.
The Airborne Systems team will design and manufacture parachutes
and related equipment to recover both the First and Second Stages
of the Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon Capsule. The capsule will
become a transportation vehicle to deliver cargo to and return
equipment from NASA's International Space Station (ISS).
In addition to carrying cargo, it is also being designed to
transport crew members to the ISS in the future.
"Our solution features a main parachute design from our family
of large Ringsail products," said Tony Taylor, Technical Director,
Space Market. "The Ringsail was designed to handle the rigors of
spacecraft recovery. Over the years, its unique design has proven
its worth and is currently used on a number of spacecraft recovery
programs including the parachute development on NASA's Orion
Spacecraft. We are very proud to be selected to work with SpaceX as
our entire team has been focused on developing parachute recovery
systems for large spacecraft and manned spaceflight for over a
decade."
"We worked with Airborne
Systems on the Falcon 1 project and we are pleased to have them
join the Falcon 9 and Dragon team as well," said Elon Musk, CEO and
CTO of SpaceX.
Airborne Systems has combined the core technologies of four
parachute brands; Irvin Aerospace, GQ Parachutes, Para-Flite and
AML (Aircraft Materials, Ltd). The company designs and manufactures
parachutes for military, personnel, and cargo systems, space and
air vehicle recovery systems, and deceleration systems for
high-performance aircraft. The company also provides ordnance flare
chutes, airbags, and weapons delivery systems.
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