NASA has successfully completed another airdrop test of the Orion crew vehicle’s parachutes at Yuma Proving Ground, south-western Arizona, marking the fifth such test of 18 in total.
NASA human exploration and operations mission directorate associate administrator William Gerstenmaier said: "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."
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During the trials, the test version of Orion was dropped from 25,000ft, during which the drogue chutes were set out between 15,000ft and 20,000ft, followed by the deployment of main-landing parachutes.
Reefing lines of the Orion parachute, when cut by a pyrotechnic device, enable it to unwrap gradually and manage the initial amount of drag and force on the parachute.
The test was aimed at determining a response from the entire system after one of the reefing lines was cut in advance, causing the three main parachutes to blow out quickly.
According to NASA, Orion descended at around 25ft a second and landed in the desert at a below maximum touchdown pace.
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By GlobalDataNASA is planning to launch an un-crewed Orion spacecraft in 2014 on Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to identify Orion’s heat shield performance at speeds produced through its return from deep space.
During EFT-1, the un-crewed spacecraft will travel 3,600 miles above Earth’s surface, which is claimed to be 15 times beyond the orbit of the International Space Station.
In 2017, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will launch Orion for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
Image: The first space-bound Orion spacecraft crew module structure delivered by Lockheed Martin. Photo: courtesy of Lockheed Martin Corporation.
