Author Topic: NASA drops replica Orion spacecraft to test parachutes  (Read 356 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online Buster's Uncle

  • With community service, I
  • Ascend
  • *
  • Posts: 49527
  • €389
  • View Inventory
  • Send /Gift
  • Because there are times when people just need a cute puppy  Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur  A WONDERFUL concept, Unity - & a 1-way trip that cost 400 trillion & 40 yrs.  
  • AC2 is my instrument, my heart, as I play my song.
  • Planet tales writer Smilie Artist Custom Faction Modder AC2 Wiki contributor Downloads Contributor
    • View Profile
    • My Custom Factions
    • Awards
NASA drops replica Orion spacecraft to test parachutes
« on: December 16, 2017, 05:49:16 PM »
NASA drops replica Orion spacecraft to test parachutes
Associated Press •December 15, 2017



This photo released by NASA shows a replica Orion Spacecraft dropped from a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft at 35,000 feet in altitude to a southwestern Arizona desert site to test the craft's ability to cope with a partial parachute failure at the U.S. Army Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz., Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. The test used two of Orion's three main parachutes to simulate the failure of the third and still sufficiently slowed the spacecraft for a landing. It was the fifth of eight tests to qualify Orion's parachute system for flights with astronauts beginning with Exploration Mission-2. (U.S. Army/NASA via AP)



YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — NASA on Friday successfully dropped a replica Orion spacecraft from an Air Force transport aircraft to a southwestern Arizona desert site to test the craft's ability to cope with a partial parachute failure.

The test used two of Orion's three main parachutes to simulate the failure of the third and still sufficiently slowed the spacecraft for a landing.

Previous attempts were thwarted by a failure of the C-17 plane's cargo doors to open at the drop altitude of 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) on Wednesday and by high winds on Thursday.

Jim McMichael, a NASA systems engineer, said the 10-ton (10.16-metric ton) replica was "sitting perfectly upright" after bouncing once when it landed at the Yuma Proving Ground, an Army installation.

Actual Orion landings will involve ocean splashdowns.

The Orion spacecraft is expected to carry as many as four astronauts deeper into space than anyone has ever gone before.

In Friday's test, two small "drogue" chutes successfully deployed, stabilized the replica's fall and then were cast off before deployment of the orange-and-white main chutes that then slowed the descent, McMichael said.

The landing spot was on hard desert soil, not a plowed and leveled area where NASA hoped the unit would land, McMichael said.

Still, "it went really well," McMichael said. "We get a little bit of a bounce. It just lands and digs a little bit of a hole and lands and sits in the desert."

McMichael said the replica is the same weight and width as the actual spacecraft but shorter so it would fit in the C-17.

A NASA team planned to pick up the parachutes and truck them and the replica to the Yuma airport used as the staging site for the parachute testing.

The test Friday was the fifth of a series of eight Orion parachute tests that began in 2016 and that will end in late 2018, he said.

___
Information from: The Sun, http://www.yumasun.com
___


https://www.yahoo.com/news/nasa-drops-replica-orion-spacecraft-test-parachutes-175039791.html

 

* User

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

Select language:

* Community poll

SMAC v.4 SMAX v.2 (or previous versions)
-=-
24 (7%)
XP Compatibility patch
-=-
9 (2%)
Gog version for Windows
-=-
103 (32%)
Scient (unofficial) patch
-=-
40 (12%)
Kyrub's latest patch
-=-
14 (4%)
Yitzi's latest patch
-=-
89 (28%)
AC for Mac
-=-
3 (0%)
AC for Linux
-=-
6 (1%)
Gog version for Mac
-=-
10 (3%)
No patch
-=-
16 (5%)
Total Members Voted: 314
AC2 Wiki Logo
-click pic for wik-

* Random quote

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
~Chairman Sheng-ji Yang 'Essays on Mind and Matter'

* Select your theme

*
Templates: 5: index (default), PortaMx/Mainindex (default), PortaMx/Frames (default), Display (default), GenericControls (default).
Sub templates: 8: init, html_above, body_above, portamx_above, main, portamx_below, body_below, html_below.
Language files: 4: index+Modifications.english (default), TopicRating/.english (default), PortaMx/PortaMx.english (default), OharaYTEmbed.english (default).
Style sheets: 0: .
Files included: 45 - 1228KB. (show)
Queries used: 35.

[Show Queries]