Spaceship in the desert: how was the Orion capsule landing?

NASA recently tested Orion capsule landings. Tests were conducted in southeastern Arizona, near the city of Yuma, in the desert. The new capsule, developed by NASA, was raised to a height of 10 kilometers, and then dropped down. The task of the test is to find out the minimum number of factors that ensure the possibility of survival for the astronauts who are in the capsule when it falls. Now it meant the opening of three of the five parachute capsules on board (one is a small starting one and two are large, main). It turned out the capsule can perfectly land on just two "domes".

Let me remind you that Orion opens up a new era in space exploration. Now scientists are developing a project to send astronauts to other planets (or asteroids), and they will get there with the help of the Orion spacecraft (and the launch from Earth will be carried out with the help of the super-heavy SLS launch vehicle). In December, the landing system was already tested, with the help of all the available parachutes - the system worked perfectly. The speed of the capsule was reduced from more than 32 thousand km / h to 32 km / h.
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There are a lot of photos under the cut, so take care of traffic if critical.


The capsule was equipped with cameras, sensors, various kinds of detectors of everything and everything - in order to determine how the landing process is going on, and whether the astronauts will survive if they are in a capsule under such conditions.

The capsule itself was lifted into the air using the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. When reaching a height of 10 km, the capsule was dropped down. Of course, the fall rate was lower than when the capsule entered the atmosphere, but for specialists the main thing now was to drop the capsule from a height of 10 km.

The drop went well, the capsule landed without any problems. It turned out, however, that she fell on her side, almost turning over, but this is not particularly critical. The pieces of porous material protecting the skin also fell off - the engineers reported that this was also not critical. Plus, the landing of the capsule is planned in the ocean, and not on solid ground, and the water will soften the blow even more. In general, the test went well, there were no particular failures or problems. Photos taken from here .










These are parachutes in the folded state.