NASA Completes Maximum Parachute Test For Orion Spacecraft “During the test, a C-130 airplane dropped a dart-shaped test vehicle with a simulated Orion parachute compartment from an altitude of 25,000 feet. Orion’s drogue chutes were deployed at approximately 20,000 feet, followed by small pilot chutes, which then deployed the three main parachutes. Each of the main parachutes is 116 feet wide and weighs more than 300 pounds.”
Felix Baumgartner Makes Parachute Jump From 96,640 feet / 29,455 meters “Today, July 25, 2012, Felix Baumgartner completed the final milestone remaining before he attempts to achieve his dream of becoming the first person to break the speed of sound in freefall. According to preliminary data, his test jump from a 5.3 million cubic-foot / 150,079 cubic-meter balloon achieved an altitude of over 96,640 feet / 29,455 meters, seeing Baumgartner […]
Felix Baumgartner Completes Test Flight Ahead of Freefall Record Attempt From The Edge of Space (More Images Added) “Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian BASE jumper aiming to break the world freefall record by jumping from 120,000ft above the earth’s surface, moved a step closer to achieving his dream today after the successful completion of a test flight from 71,581 ft. (21,818 metres). Still-to-be-confirmed figures indicate that at 09:40am MT after an […]
Details of Constellation Program Parachute Test Emerge “On 9 February 2010 NASA conducted a test to validate an approach that would be used to test the parachutes for the Orion spacecraft. That test did not go according to plan. However, contrary to earlier stories and rumors, a mock up of an Orion spacecraft did not crash into the desert. Rather a large test sledge did. During this test, an extraction […]
Unlucky Orion crashing out of the space program as drop test fails, NASASpaceflight.com “Unfortunately, the Orion Project suffered a failure on one of its tests this week, when a boilerplate Orion crashed to Earth after its “parachutes failed to deploy”. However, the problem is not believed to be Orion or the parachute system’s fault, with the failure memo citing a problem with the rigging associated with the extraction system – […]