NASA completed another successful test Wednesday of
the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert in
preparation for the spacecraft’s 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-17 plane dropped a test version of Orion from an altitude of 25,000 feet
above the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. This test was
the second to use an Orion craft that mimics the full size and shape of the
spacecraft.
Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 feet and 20,000 feet,
followed by the pilot parachutes, which deployed the main landing parachutes.
Orion descended about 25 feet per second, well below its maximum designed
touchdown speed, when it landed on the desert floor.
"Across the country, NASA and industry are moving forward on the most
advanced spacecraft ever designed, conducting drop and splashdown tests,
preparing ground systems, designing software and computers and paving the way
for the future of exploration," said William Gerstenmaier, associate
administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at
NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Today's parachute test in Yuma is an
important reminder of the progress being made on Orion and its ultimate mission
-- enabling NASA to meet the goal of sending humans to an asteroid and
Mars."
Orion parachutes have so-called reefing lines, which when cut by a pyrotechnic
device, allow the parachute to open gradually, managing the initial amount of
drag and force on the parachute. The main objective of the latest drop test was
to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the reefing lines
was cut prematurely, causing the three main parachutes to inflate too quickly.
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. All of the tests build an understanding of the chutes' technical
performance for eventual human-rated certification.
In 2014, an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida on Exploration Flight Test-1. The spacecraft will travel
3,600 miles above Earth's surface. This is 15 times farther than the
International Space Station's orbit and farther than any spacecraft designed to
carry humans has gone in more than 40 years. The main flight objective is to
understand Orion's heat shield performance at speeds generated during a return
from deep space.
In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a
heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human
exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching
spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration
and expand human presence across the solar system.
Keywords – Orion parachute test, NASA's
Space Launch System (SLS), Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate
at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Orion crew vehicle's parachutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment