With so much preparation ongoing to prepare NASA’s new crew capsule to safely enable human’s deep space travel, take a look at some of the latest developments.
Orion is the crew capsule, taking humans in the future deeper into space than they’ve ever gone before. With a launch in 2018 integrated with NASA’s new rocket, Space Launch System, this will be the final flight of Orion before humans travel in it.
The approaching flight in 2018 is called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). The second flight of the new launch vehicle is EM-2.
After their mission, humans will return to Earth in the Orion capsule. What is one of the essential factors that will keep humans safe when they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere? Parachutes!
At the end of last month, NASA began qualification tests of the capsule’s parachutes system. A test article flew in an airplane and was dropped from more than 6.5 miles above the ground. This allowed the parachutes to experience the highest dynamic pressure yet.
Orion parachute, Credits: NASA
Before reaching the right conditions for the test, three small parachutes were used to achieve the right conditions and are called programmer parachutes. After these three were cut away, two different parachutes deployed to gather important data. These two only lasted for seconds before being cut away.
Next, two more parachutes were deployed and opened. These were drogue parachutes, used to both stabalize the test article and slow it down. After both of these parachutes, three more were deployed that pulled out the main paracutes. They are called pilot parachutes.
There are three main parachutes. They are used to slow the crew capsule down to a landing speed so that the crew will be safe.
On purpose, the test article wasn’t shaped like the ones generally used for testing which are capsule-shaped. This one was shaped like a dart. This shape allowed the article to achieve a higher velocity.
When in a return mission does the parachute sequence generally start?
It starts when the capsule is 24,000 feet above the ground. After descending to around 4,000 feet, the capsule’s main parachutes are fully open.
Seven more tests will occur to qualify the system for crewed flights. One more test will use the dart-shaped test article. The other tests will use a capsule-like article.
These next seven tests will take place over approximately two and a half years. Up until this test, 17 engineering development tests were finished.
Additionally, NASA’s partners for the Commercial Crew Program will receive the data on the test performance of parachutes.
With the next test coming up in October, the test article will be shaped like a capsule. It will fall from 25,000 feet.
Launching as part of Orion in EM-1, the parachute system will help slow down the capsule to approximately 17 mph after reentering Earth at as high as 25,000 mph!
This new capsule will travel beyond the moon on its first mission and return safely to Earth. It’s an important capabability to will enable deep space exploration for humans, and eventually take them to Mars!
Learn more about Orion: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/about/index.html