Another Orion Parachute Problem - Still No Word

Perhaps they should solicit help from Steve Eves
Steve Eves' Saturn V Launch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FXx7WqIUHA&feature=related

1:10 Scale Saturn V with stabilization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWd7q7NLbEs&feature=related

Is this surprising? When the tether broke on STS 75 NASA PAO's commentary was so positive that it nearly made it appear as if losing the satellite had been a planned part of the mission.

Just a quick question...Why does this even matter anymore?????...IT'S OVER!!!!!

A failed/canceled Cx program.

A reusable derived system (sts) that never lived up to the lower cost to its LEO promise.

A Space station that hasn't really served the public in any significant fashion concerning advancements in science that were promised.

After this year no clear direction for Human Space Flight.

That pretty much sums it up I guess.

Are we at a place were we ( god forbid) have to assume that Apollo set the bar to high for the public to care about anything less( unless there is an accident)?

OK before I get railed by everyone telling me I'm wrong I would like to say I live in Florida and have only missed 3 STS launches ( 2 kids and Cancer). I support NASA and everything about space and try to instill that in my kids.LRO showed me pictures of the Apollo Artifacts ( which I never thought would happen).Cassini Has given me views of Saturn I never thought possible. The Mars exploration program ( 2 rovers 2 sats) has to me been a great success ( no possibility life found withstanding). Then there is HUBBLE probably the single greatest contribution to science made by a NASA program ( and most successful) in conjunction with subsequent STS repair missions.In all unmanned probes/craft have significantly contributed to our understanding more than a few fields of science.I know I forgot several Sat.s and earlier probes duly noted.So don't tell me I'm hating on NASA or I don't have all the facts. I am john Q Public taxpayer help me understand why we are using the same basic technology that we used in the 50's? Why is gravity still kicking our ass all the way to LEO?

I'm sure that commercial spacecraft would not have any parachute problems. ;)

That reminds me, have any of the Dragon tests been posted?

Why do you insist in defacing the Constellation logo with a gigantic "X"?

It seems very amateurish and churlish.

You may not like the program, but give the people that have worked extremely hard on it some respect for their work.

Sure, the parachutes failed on this attempt

I am quite sure that the NASA employees did not want this to happen and that they are quite upset with it crashing to earth.

This is not the first time that this has happened.

Heck, i'd rather have them fail during testing than have tests skipped over and a declaration of success.

From what I understand there have been no parachute tests for Dragon or any other new commercial capsule crew vehicle.

When a Dragon parachute test fails, are you going to paste a big X over the Dragon logo?

When there is loss of crew during a mission, are you going to paste a big X over a crew picture or the mission logo?

Why don't you commemorate Jan 28 each year, with a 51L logo defaced with a big X?

Maybe the $2.5 billion closeout costs doesn't include NASA PAO posting negative Constellation info.

NASA PAO is more of a PR firm then a public affairs department. Being a publicly funded operation, there is so much fear of showing failure.

The one program that owned up to a problem, turned it around and brought about so much public support that the program was saved is Hubble. It's the "can-do" poster child now.

I will give PAO credit for at least talking to America. You don't see DOD, DOT, or Homeland Security twittering.

> Just a quick question...Why does this even matter anymore?????...IT'S OVER!!!!!

The Navy A-12 was cancelled in 1991, but the litigation by the contractors went on until 2009. Sometimes these things don't die quickly.

> A failed/canceled Cx program.

I would characterize Cx as slated for cancellation, not actually cancelled just yet. I would not characterize it as "failed." I simply don't think Cx fit into any reasonable budget envelope and timeline profile.

I personally think R&D should continue on designs and technologies for vehicles returning at beyond-LEO velocities.

Parachutes and parachute deployment systems are mature technologies - or at least they used to be.

I am not sure what the big deal is. No system is infallible and it is precisely this reason that we do testing. Just because this one test did not work does not mean that the parachute system is utterly flawed. If we took that approach the Wright brothers would have abandoned their efforts after their first test. And constellation is not cancelled, the president submitted a budget request zeroing out their funding. Until congress approves the constellation budget, they still have FY10 funds to work on supplied by the omnibus bill.

Sounds like they should have had spaceX design the recovery system. They are the cutting edge in engineering and science according the "new paradigm shift for human space flight". The fundamental flaw with that however is that no matter how much money is thrown at commercial space flight a capacity to innovate and lead human space flight will not be realized. Newt Gingrich wrote some a ground breaking piece saying that a commercial crew vehicle will be available within 5 years. He went on to say that human rating existing commercial rockets would be easy, just a walk in the park! Let's hope so. But since mission definition drove the design of these military rockets some serious redesign and weight gains are on the way.

By the way just how many millionaires are there? Enough to fund commercial space flight? Every other article that talks about this new shift, some politician or the administrator himself is comparing the "new age" in space flight to the beginnings of commercial aircraft flight. Did the government directly subsidize flying passengers aircraft or was it just mail routes? There has always been a clear division between flying passengers for money and flying military missions with aircraft. So the military has a capable space flight program already, true, I am just wondering though, if the next time I travel can I request to ride an F/A-18D at $10,000/hr or should I just use Delta and take the $500.00 hit?.

Parachute deployment should be considered as two moving part events:
one-the opening of the parachute hatch(es).
two-the successful unfurling of the parachutes.

The Orion has these life or death moving part events by design. The Shuttle or the proposed "Dream Chaser" http://www.spacedev.com/spacedev_advanced_systems.php
have aero-braking inherent in their shape. And I'd guess there's a possibility that a lifting body could survive a drogue chute failure or landing gear failure, so they would have the advantage in that regard. Not so the Dragon.

Live and learn, and vice versa.

The rumblings were that Orion would live on as the "commercial" crew capsule atop another booster.
Without that we're basically set back to 2004 and praying newspace can fill in the blanks quickly.

"Churlish" Great word, had to look it up.

> The rumblings were that Orion would live on as the "commercial" crew capsule atop another booster.
Without that we're basically set back to 2004 and praying newspace can fill in the blanks quickly.

I don't see any reason Boeing with its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative or Lockheed with an Orion-Lite capsule cannot compete with SpaceX's Dragon or Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser.

I think "newspace" can just as easily be established companies who need to "think different".

Having had some experience in parachute drop testing, the failure very well could have been caused by the way the Orion model was extracted from the aircraft. Assuming it was extracted by a small parachute and a static line, the rigging to pull the test item out is critical in getting the right attitude of the test item for parachute deployment. And of course, there could have been parachute rigging problems on the mains, cutter problems, etc. None would have anything to do with the Orion model itself.

Sherlock, if they cannot perform a proper deployment test then the problems run deeper than anyone before ever imagined. As someone else said, parachute deployment technologies are very mature. We've been doing this for quite some time.

Dragon won't have a parachute failure.

Wasn't there a previous Orion parachute test where the extraction system from the aircraft caused the test to fail? The manager for that test (Aug 2008) was quoted in space.com: "A failure of set-up parachutes is actually one of the most common occurrences in this sort of test."

OK, but was corrective action taken? Was this a new failure mode or the same one?

The infrequency of tests probably makes these kinds of test failures more likely. 18 months between drop tests?

Sometimes range technicians make changes to the static line unbeknownst to the test article engineers. I know this from experience. I'm not saying that's what happened in the recent Orion test failure, but it could have been.

Re: The last few posts.

In a test program, you validate your test rig FIRST.

Sorry if it has been done this way but jeez, I think this is the second time that people are attributing problems to the test fixture.

Makes you kind of wonder how valid the tests actually are doesn't it?

I forget how many rockets did we blow up in the early years of NASA?

ALOT!

Its called testing.

You rig up it fails you change something.rinse and repeat.

That coming about at this time, I think is untimely and unfortunate and has a very nasty propaganda feel to it.

So? Failures do happen during testing. Let's see...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10005481-76.html

It happens. Stop harping on Orion. It's pretty obvious your attempts to make Orion and the Constellation program look bad. But those of us who are smart enough to know this is part of the process aren't going to listen.

Better hope SpaceX doesn't have anymore issues. Should we can it if they do?

And nothing is ever reported about SpaceX not publishing any details on their test schedule (when are Dragon parachute tests scheduled?). If we don't know when they are planning tests, then we don't know to ask about failures.

Keith,

Agree with esmithatty:

Your childish act of crossing out Constellation is indeed that.

Well, oh, hmm.... I think I'm gonna cross out NASAwatch from my daily read. Ciao.

NASA....what?????

Editor's note: Have a nice day!

So how's that whole "transparency" thing working out for everyone?

NASA is a political tool. Has been since the time of Apollo, but back then they left the smart guys to do the development without a cadre of non-smart guys telling them how to spread out their labor hours.

Slice NASA in half. Give half to the DoD (ONR, DARPA, AFRL) and the other half to the FAA. Done.

@Keith Cowing

'Still nothing from ESMD PAO on this. Either they do not want to say
anything or they do not know what to say.'

Hey, the program's been cancelled, right? Why bother to waste any more time
on it?

Typical comment. The topic is about not hearing anything from a U.S. agency and people try to deflect the criticism by bringing up SpaceX a private company. Not to mention the fact that SpaceX has broadcast their failures and successes on the internet. Not to mention that they actually developed their own new rocket engine with 2 versions for boost and second stage, 2 classes of rockets, Falcon 1 and 9 and all for a fraction of the cost of the Constellation program ($9 billion already spent plus the 2.5 billion to "close down").

You know SpaceX seemed to be posting a lot more information before all of the anti-SpaceX sentiment. I miss the updates from the company but in a way can't blame them for taking the approach that they are. How many updates have you seen from Orbital??

Yeah, keep talking guys. You are sounding more and more ignorant with each post.

YOU missed the point. The information is out there about the failed parachute test with pictures and Keith even provides those links. No one is hiding anything. Keith is pointing out the failure simply to make the program look bad. I have nothing against SpaceX, but I used them as an example because they are one of the big ticket companies that NASA's proposed budget will invest in. The point I was making is that they too have failures and we don't cancel a program because of failures during developement testing. Perhaps you should read some of the other comments regarding this article. They didn't seem too on topic either. Funny how it's only bad when it's coming from a supporter of Constellation.

By the way, in case you are unaware, SpaceX has a contract with NASA. It's called the Space Station resupply services contract and therefore, it's no longer any more of a "private company" than the contractors working on Orion. Or perhaps you are one of the ignorant people who thinks NASA is designing and building Orion totally in-house...

I'd say SpaceX is required to be just as open with their testing as any other government funded program.

To all of you rambling naysayers out there, either way, you need to check your facts.

Orion1 - SpaceX's (and Orbital's) contract is a fixed price, mile stoned based contract. Which means that SpaceX (and Orbital) manages it's own program and NASA reviews it, says yea or nay, and stays out of the way. SpaceX (and Orbital) puts up it's own money, NASA pays out only when they reach a mile stone. CxP contracts are cost-plus, NASA managed, pay up front and as you go. NASA has total say and controls everything about the contracts. Orion is a CxP contract. Also, SpaceX is not a big ticket company. They have less then 1000 employee's and has spent less money on a whole infrastructure then NASA has spent on Orion alone. They also payed for it out of their own pocket. Ask Boeing and LockMart how much they put into these programs. Uh, how about nothing.

Oh, and by the way, When I was in the Air Force, I did a lot of airdrops, just like what there doing here to test the Orion parachutes. When outsiders (non-air force techs) rigged the chutes, if it failed, it was there problem, and more then likely the rig would fail. If we rigged the chutes, we had maybe one failure out of 1000. Why, because we knew what we were doing and did it a lot. And don't tell me about learning curves. We know how to airdrop 60 plus ton battle tanks. A little Orion capsule should be no problem, we did this with Apollo, didn't we? And yes, their will be failures, we are not perfect, we are human. Cutters fail, chutes don't deploy, oh well. The other thing I don't under stand is when we tested new rigging, we did like 30 drops in like 10 days, over and over again. Orion has done two in like 18 months. No learning curve here, more like flat-lined.

Last thing, I think SpaceX has been more open then any private company has ever been while working on proto-typing it's products. We're is the news on Orbital, or has there been any?

It's also not the first time when flight data evidence disappeared. A photo was released of the ARES1-X flight shortly after - on this site? Never occurred to me it would disappear - showing the dummy upper stage had suffered a partial structural collapse at the base/inter-stage section and just above. Can I find the photo now? Noooooo.....

With respect, most of the money used by Space X came from first - your alma mater - the USAF, and later COTS. Also Musk has another operation: Tesla Cars which is also financed mainly by USG. Last I heard, Musk was pleased to mention he's spent only 40 odd Million of his own Billions in setting Space X up; with the rest of the money coming ... he's even got a "get out there,and vote me more govt money" blog on SpaceX website. Par for the course IMO. As for OSC, they are a professional company that doesn't make claims which more often than not turn out to be self-serving(especially money-wise) hype.
I've a feeling that if and when Space X succeeds, it will be at MUCH higher cost then claimed and on a par with the BIG THREE that the USAF is trying to detach themselves from: because THEY are so expensive!

Whew, good that it wasn't the Orion parachutes failing or Orion itself crashing. Might want to update the title of the post to reflect what really happened.