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NASA tested the parachutes of the Orion spacecraft on March 16, 2018, at the Yuma field of the US Army in Arizona.
Credit: James Blair / NASA
NASA will perform its final skydiving test for the Orion spacecraft today (Sept. 12) as the agency prepares Orion for its first unmanned mission around the moon.
NASA will begin covering the test at 10:15 am EDT (2:15 pm GMT) on NASA Television and the Orion Facebook page. Viewers can ask questions on social media using the hashtag #AskNASA. You can watch the test here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. According to a NASA press release, several NASA employees will participate, including Orion program director Mark Kirasich, astronaut Randy Bresnik and Orion skydiving engineers.
During the procedure at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, USA, an Orion test pod will be dropped from a C-17 aircraft over 9 km high. The test should test the ability of 11 parachutes, mortars and pyrotechnics to slow down the capsule for safe descent to the Earth. [Orion: NASA’s Next Spaceship in Pictures]
"Until now, such tests have evaluated the performance of the Orion parachute during normal landing sequences, several failure scenarios and various potential aerodynamic conditions to ensure the safe return of astronauts." missions in the deep space ".
The first Orion test flight is scheduled to take place no earlier than 2019, when the spacecraft – mounted on the space launch system – will be launched to lunar orbit for a mission two weeks. While this test flight will be abandoned, NASA could possibly use Orion for trips beyond the low Earth orbit. The agency is working on plans for a Lunar Orbiting Platform gateway (which space station orbiting the moon) and also talked about getting people to Mars.
follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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