Orion Parachute Test
 

After the Orion Parachute Test
Click on the image to see the pictures and view the video.

Oops.





"Before" pictures of the test article are here.

Oops indeed. Just watching that gave me motion sickness.

Yeah. I couldn't stop myself from trying to imagine what it would be like if there were crew aboard. Egad!

But that's why we do tests! :D

Ouch!! Did the spaceship get wrecked totaly? It looks pretty bad.

Yes, it got really banged up. I haven't heard whether the structure can be salvaged. Fortunately, it was a structural test article, designed to have the same shape and weight as an Orion spacecraft but without any of the really expensive stuff that would make it a spaceship.

The parachute that failed wasn't even one of the Orion parachutes. It was a "programmer" chute that was supposed to set up the spacecraft in the right attitude and velocity to simulate the return of the spacecraft, and then let go. Unfortunately, the programmer chute got tangled up somehow and failed to open, and everything was a mess after that.

FYI, I didn't have anything to do with this test. I'm just reading what it says on the NASA public web site.

Well thats why engineers test things right? :)

Do you know what happened to the space suit? I heard about it on the news but don't get what they meant.

Yup. If nothing ever failed, there's be no point in doing tests! :lol:

In this case, it's a shame that it was the test setup equipment that failed, though; they didn't get a good test of Orion's parachutes.

All I know about the space suit contract is what's on the news. NASA awarded the contract. There were two competitors and the loser protested. The GAO investigated. They threw out the loser's protest but in the process of investigating the selection process, the GAO found enough nits that NASA decided to cancel the contract they had awarded and ask for new proposals.

Emphasis: None of this reflects badly the company that won the contract, Oceaneering International. They did everything right. If there were any goofs, they were in the process of selecting who would get the contract; that was all internal to NASA. There aren't enough details available to the public to determine whether I agree with the decision to recompete the contract.

It delays the development of the space suit by several months, but beyond that, I could only speculate. I don't know what the long-term effects on the Constellation program will be. The winning company had hired some of the folks from the losing company, and I don't know what the effect will be on those guys, either.