[meteorite-list] NASA Tests Orion Spacecraft Parachute Jettison over Arizona

[Ron Baalke]

January 16, 2014

Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft at nasa.gov 

Brandi Dean
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
brandi.k.dean at nasa.gov 
     
RELEASE 14-019
     
NASA Tests Orion Spacecraft Parachute Jettison over Arizona

Engineers testing the parachute system for NASA's Orion spacecraft increased  
the complexity of their tests Thursday, Jan. 16, adding the jettison of  
hardware designed to keep the capsule safe during flight.

The test was the first to give engineers in-air data on the performance of  
the system that jettisons Orion's forward bay cover. The cover is a shell  
that fits over Orion's crew module to protect the spacecraft during launch,  
orbital flight and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. When Orion returns from  
space, the cover must come off before the spacecraft's parachutes can deploy.  
It must be jettisoned high above the ground in order for the parachutes to  
unfurl.

"This was a tough one," said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager. "We'd done  
our homework, of course, but there were elements here that could only be  
tested in the air, with the entire system working together. It's one of the  
most complicated tests that we'll do, so we were all excited to see it work  
just as it was meant to."

Previous parachute tests at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona  
tested the performance of the parachutes in various conditions without a  
forward bay cover. Adding the cover and its jettison, along with the  
deployment of three additional parachutes to pull the cover away from the  
crew module and lower it to the ground, added a level of complexity to the  
testing.

"The parachute deployment and forward bay cover jettisons are two of the most  
difficult things for us to model on computers," said Chris Johnson, project  
manager for the parachutes. "That's why we test them so extensively. These  
systems have to work for Orion to make it safely to the ground, and every bit  
of data we can gather in tests like these helps us improve our models and  
gives us more confidence that when we do it for real, we can count on them."

The forward bay cover is jettisoned using a thruster separation system built  
by Systima Technologies Inc. of Bothell, Wash. Lockheed Martin, prime  
contractor for Orion, tested the system for the first time on the ground in  
December. Two more ground tests will simulate different types of stresses on  
the cover, such as a potential parachute failure or loads on the spacecraft.  
NASA also plans a second airborne test with the forward bay cover to evaluate  
its performance with a failed parachute.

Orion will be put to its first test in space during its first mission,  
Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1), in September. EFT-1 will have an uncrewed  
Orion launch to an orbit 3,600 miles above Earth, well beyond the distance  
traveled by spacecraft built for humans in more than 40 years. After circling  
Earth twice, Orion will re-enter the atmosphere at speeds as fast as 20,000  
mph before the parachute system slows it down for a splashdown in the Pacific  
Ocean.

For information about Orion and EFT-1, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/orion 

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