SpaceX… When You Drop A Dragon In Space Make Sure It Has A Parachute! (Spacecraft) - [SatNews] It’s always important to make sure your parachute works properly, whether golden or otherwise.

* This looks reminiscent of the US NASA Apollo Space Program … with a space craft designed to drop back down from space and deploy parachutes for a water recovery landing.

http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=886061620

Today SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) announced their Dragon spacecraft has successfully completed a high altitude drop test, meeting 100 percent of test objectives.  This is the last in a series of tests to validate parachute deployment systems and recovery operations before the craft’s first launch.

During the August 12th test, an Erikson S-64F Air-Crane helicopter dropped a test article of the Dragon spacecraft from a height of 14,000 feet, roughly nine miles off the coast of Morro Bay, California.  In a carefully timed sequence of events, dual redundant drogue parachutes deployed first to stabilize and gently slow the craft before three main parachutes, 116 feet in diameter, further slowed the craft to a picture perfect landing.  From there, recovery ships successfully returned the Dragon and parachutes to shore.

While Dragon will initially be used to transport cargo, the spacecraft was designed to transport crew and the parachute system validated during the test is the same system that would be used on a crew-carrying Dragon. 

—
Alan Spicer
 
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This entry was posted on 2. September 2010 at 04:45 and is filed under Satellite Voice and Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.