Orion capsule to take first flight with U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground-tested parachutes

Mars, asteroids, and other deep space destinations are about to get a little closer to humanity.

Sitting on a launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Fl, NASA's Orion space capsule is undergoing several weeks of final checks prior to its first launch into space in early December. After ascending to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the earth, the Orion will leave orbit some four hours later and touch down safely in the ocean several hundred miles southwest of San Diego thanks to parachutes extensively tested at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground.

While the Orion capsule will fly approximately 20,000 miles per hour to escape the Earth, to return its occupants safely to the ground the same capsule needs to be decelerated to speeds slower than most people drive automobiles on residential streets. Creating a spacecraft that can endure these and other rigors of space travel is an engineering marvel, and the Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS) parachute system that will bring it safely back to Earth is just as sophisticated. The rope that makes up the parachutes' cord is made of Kevlar, the strong synthetic fiber used in body armor. Each main parachute consists of 10,000 square feet of fabric: the CPAS system is designed to deploy sequentially and pass through two stages prior to being fully open: on re-entry, two drogue parachutes deploy to slow the hurtling 10-ton capsule prior to three main parachutes taking it down to a languid landing speed of 17 miles per hour.

"Getting the crew home safely is one of our biggest challenges, and the parachute system is critical to accomplishing that, for there are many systems that have to function correctly," said William Hartwell, Deputy Program Executive for the Orion spacecraft. "We are very pleased to have the expertise of the Air Force, Army, and YPG to help us ensure this crucial system will bring our crews home safely."

But what if something unexpected requires the capsule to come back shortly after lifting off from the launch pad, or from altitudes and speeds lower and slower than what would occur from an ordinary mission? The CPAS was designed to compensate for a variety of failures in the hope that astronauts can still return to Earth safely if something goes wrong, and these abort scenarios were also put to the test at YPG.

"Every change that we do to the parachutes, we test here," said Chris Johnson, project manager for the CPAS system. "Testing in a full scale environment is very important to not only identify changes that need to be made, but test the implementation of those changes."

"Systems like this are especially hard to analyze and test on a sub-scale basis," added Paul Marshall, the Orion program's Assistant Program Manager for strategy integration. "The physical processes of a parachute are very dynamic and unpredictable. You can't model it, so testing is really important."

Tests of the CPAS at YPG will continue through at least next year. YPG has tested items for NASA dating back to the Mobility Test Article (MTA), the precursor to the lunar rover, in 1966.

"YPG has been part of our test portfolio forever," said Marshall. "It's a great partnership and we really appreciate the special services that they provide us. We have a great relationship with the Army."