On 31 July NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle parachute recovery system test mock-up was badly damaged when it crashed to Earth because of an uninflated programmer chute.
Dropped from a Boeing C-17 over the US Army's Yuma testing grounds in Arizona, the mock-up was released from its pallet and then the programmer chute, used to get the mock-up in the correct orientation, altitude and speed for the test, failed to inflate.
As the programmer chute did not inflate the actual recovery parachute system also failed.
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©NASA
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Above: NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle parachute recovery system test mock-up is badly damaged after crashing to Earth |
Keep up to date on Nasa's Orion with Rob Coppinger's Hyperbola blog ...