NASA
July 31: The mock-up Orion crew vehicle after some of its parachutes failed in a test over Arizona.
July 31: The mock-up Orion crew vehicle after some of its parachutes failed in a test over Arizona.
Posted on 08/22/2008 2:32:22 PM PDT by jazusamo
A mock-up of NASA's Orion space shuttle successor twisted, tumbled and fell from thousands of feet up after a parachute failed to inflate properly during a July 31 test.
The programmer chute was designed to stabilize the mock-up before beginning a test of its parachute recovery system, but instead sent the capsule careening toward the desert floor at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona.
"This is the most complicated parachute test NASA has run since the '60's," said Carol Evans, test manager for the parachute system at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "We are taking a close look at what caused the set-up chutes to malfunction. A failure of set-up parachutes is actually one of the most common occurrences in this sort of test."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
NASA
July 31: The mock-up Orion crew vehicle after some of its parachutes failed in a test over Arizona.
July 31: The mock-up Orion crew vehicle after some of its parachutes failed in a test over Arizona.
Hmmm, now how did we land on the moon?
Couldn’t they use an old concrete truck to test with instead of the real thing?
That’s a fairly major “Uh Oh.”
Call me crazy, but when someone says “complicated” and “parachute” I tend to think “crash”.
Thanks for the link, doesn’t look like any of it went right.
If we can send a Man to the Moon.... you would think we could still send a Man to the Moon (40 years later).
checkout www.spacedev.com
they have the Dreamchaser, also known as HL 20, which was an original NASA designed plane. This is a runway lander too, which, as I understand it, most want. They don’t want the capsule.
“Fail” and “parachute test” in the same headline always spells trouble.
Capsules are SOOO last century.
Makes you wonder doesn't it? NASA is now just as competant and well managed as the rest of the Federal goverment. In other words, not.
From the article, there area a total of ten different parachutes, deploying at different times for different purposes.
NASA has forgotten the K.I.S.S. principle.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/06/1250678.aspx
Q: That would be an area where you’d like to depart from the current course – because in the COTS program, both of the companies receiving NASA money are developing space capsules as well.
A: You’re very observant, following my well-chosen words. I’m quite aware that a number of years ago, the Russians had a design that they tested with scale models. We re-engineered and studied it and renamed it the HL-20. … My group of engineers thought it was very, very attractive, and together with Raytheon we were working on a proposal… It really surprised us when the upper management said they’d make no bid for COTS. …
So I and my engineers searched around and looked for ways of teaming with different people. Initially it was not too satisfying to work with SpaceDev, but after a change of management, it became very appropriate. I’ve been pursuing that personally and somewhat organizationally ever since. I think that would be a very good alliance to work with, including foreign partners like ESA, JAXA and ISRO [the European, Japanese and Indian space agencies].
I haven’t taken steps yet, but hopefully the Commerce Department may choose to provide a preferential announcement. That would be kind of gutsy for somebody to do. … I think we need to fill the gap, and I’d sure like to see the gap filled early by a lifting body and a runway lander.
Boy, you would think they would test this kind of thing first during development testing.....
Oh yeah.
They are.
This is why you *TEST*.
And it does not sound like a design issue but a test process issue.
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