Orion Lands Safely on Two of Three Parachutes in Test

摘要

NASA's Orion spacecraft demonstrated Feb. 12 that it can land safely if one of its three main parachutes fails to inflate during deployment. Before dropping an Orion test capsule from a plane 7,600 meters above Yuma, Ariz., engineers rigged the parachutes so only two would inflate. "Today is a great validation of the parachute system," Chris Johnson, a NASA project manager for Orion's parachute system, said in a statement. "We never intend to have a parachute fail, but we've proven that if we do, the system is robust [enough] for our crew to make it to the ground safely."