The capsules of the commercial crew still plagued by parachute problems

Engineers re-examined the parachutes of the crew capsule during Nevis's last month's drop test on SpaceX's Crew Dragon program. Boeing has encountered similar failures in the commercial crew capsule test, a senior NASA executive confirmed Wednesday.

The failure of the SpaceX parachute test occurred in the same month as the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test at Cape Canaveral. The parachute drop test on Delamar Dry Lake in Nevada last month did not involve a Dragon Crew capsule, but used a simple metal test sled.

"This failed," said Bill Gerstenmaier, deputy administrator of NASA's Directorate of Human Exploration and Operations. "The parachutes did not work as expected."

The parachutes did not fully open, sources said, and the test sled hit the ground at a speed higher than expected. Gerstenmaier said the sled had been damaged during the impact. The advanced development test was aimed at measuring the loads in each parachute awning, according to an industry source.

No one was injured in the test crash.

"It was a unique test for this parachute," Gerstenmaier said Wednesday at a hearing before the subcommittee of the Committee on Space Science, Space and Technology and Aeronautics. "As a rule, this test would involve four parachutes, a failure would have been anticipated proactively and the other three chutes would not have worked properly."

Representative Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, whose neighborhoods include Huntsville and Decatur, headquarters of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Space Center and the United Launch Alliance rocket factory, was questioned about the result of the SpaceX parachute test. between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and a major rival of SpaceX.

The failure of the parachute trial was not announced by NASA or SpaceX before Wednesday's congressional hearing.

"The good thing about the test is that we had instrumented ropes up to the parachutes. So we know exactly what the load is in the system, "said Gerstenmaier. "But we still need to understand if it was a test configuration coming out of the aircraft or if there was something related to the packaging of the parachutes, the rigging, and so on. This is part of the learning process. Through these failures, we will learn the data and information to achieve a safe design for our crews. So, I do not see that as a negative, that's why we test, that's why we want to get things done. "

The engineers are investigating whether the parachute malfunction was caused by a problem with the slides themselves or by the way the test was conducted.

"The test was not satisfactory, we did not get the desired results," he said. "But we have learned that some information could affect future parachute designs. The other thing we need to understand (these are the) unique circumstances to the test. Was this caused by a hardware design problem or by the test setup or the equipment used in the test? "

To date, SpaceX has performed 19 tests of the crew's Dragon Parachute System, and several other tests are planned before the astronauts will fly aboard the spacecraft. SpaceX had successfully completed five "parachute exit" tests, in which one of the chutes was deliberately turned off, prior to the test crash last month, according to an industry source.

NASA officials have long recognized parachutes as a concern for SpaceX and Boeing capsules, which are in the final stages of development before transporting astronauts into orbit for the first time. Upon completion of their test programs, the SpaceX and Boeing capsules will begin transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station, ending NASA's sole use of the Russian space shuttle Soyuz for the transportation of space. the crew.

A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule suffered a parachute anomaly when returning from the International Space Station last year, but the recovery crews recovered the supply ship in the Pacific Ocean as planned.

The SpaceX Dragon cargo ship uses the same main parachutes as the Dragon Crew, also called Dragon 2. But the heavier Dragon Crew is a very different spacecraft from the cargo variant. It requires four main parachutes to slow down the ocean, not the three main chutes used on cargo freighter currently in flight, sometimes called Dragon 1.

The crew's first Dragon test flight in early March was successful and the capsule parachutes worked as planned after a six-day unmanned mission at the space station. The spacecraft that was going to the station in March was destroyed on April 20 in an accident at Cape Canaveral, while the SuperDraco abandonment engines of the capsule were activated for a shot on a bench. 'trial.

Prior to the April 20 crash, SpaceX was aiming to fly the Dragon Crew spacecraft again during an in – flight flight test in July. The officials hoped to launch a team of two NASA astronauts – Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – on the next Crew Dragon spacecraft bound for the space station in late September or early October.

SpaceX and NASA officials have not said how the heat-stroke test incident last month, or the parachute failure, could impact the timing of the first flight of the Crew Dragon with astronauts on board.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsule, which will parachute ground landings in the western United States, is scheduled to make its first unmanned flight test to the space station in August, followed by the first flight of the pilot. a demonstration mission with three astronauts on board as early as November. Starliner missions will be launched on ULA's Atlas 5 rocket, while SpaceX will use its own Falcon 9 launcher for Crew Dragon missions.

Patricia Sanders, Chair of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee, told congressmen that parachutes were one of the biggest risks for SpaceX and Boeing engineers participating in the crew program NASA.

"There have been a number of very positive tests, results confirming what we expected or wanted in terms of parachute re-entry performance," said Sanders. "There have been some less satisfactory results, and some tests indicate that it might be necessary to modify or modify the design.

"These are important before throwing humans," she says.

Lawmakers did not question Gerstenmaier about the recent results of the Boeing parachute test. But in response to Spaceflight Now's question after the hearing, he confirmed that the Starliner parachute drop tests had encountered anomalies similar to those experienced by SpaceX last month.

"We have obtained unique data that will help us to know if this is a problem to solve or a simple nuance between testing and configuration," Gerstenmaier said of the test's failure. SpaceX parachute last month.

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