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while the international space station

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continues to fly on with its mission

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nasa is also moving ahead with some

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testing on its next human spacecraft

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that is the orion vehicle after a

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successful flight test of an uncrewed

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spacecraft late last year the program is

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planning another important parachute

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test next week

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this one will include some planned

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failures of a couple of parachutes in

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the system this morning we're going to

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learn more about that plan i'm joined by

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chris johnson who is the orion capsule

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parachute assembly system project

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manager good morning welcome thanks for

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taking the time with us this morning

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thanks for having me what is it that you

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will be testing in these these tests in

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arizona next week yeah so we'll be doing

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an air drop test

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that tests the full scale orion

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parachute system which includes forward

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recovery parachutes

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drug parachutes pilot parachutes and

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main parachutes and we use a

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representative full-scale orion capsule

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to perform the test it has a critical

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interface to the parachute system as

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well as it generates a representative

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wake

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to be a more accurate environment

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to the parachutes

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so to do this test actually to get to

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the test point that's half the battle

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when we go out and do our tests in yuma

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so we use a test technique that we've

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developed

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we use a c-17 to take the test vehicle

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which includes the ptv up to an altitude

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of either 25 000 feet or 35 000 feet and

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depending on the test objectives we

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extract that vehicle from the c-17

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we separate the ptv from the platform or

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cradle that carries it up there and then

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we deploy programmer parachutes behind

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the ptv and that's used to get the orion

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parachute system to its test point

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so it's a very complicated test

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technique we use up to nine other

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parachutes other than the orion

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parachute system

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to perform an air drop test and that is

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one of the big engineering challenges we

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have when we do an air drop test and we

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were just showing folks uh one of the

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recent tests there how is what you're

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going to be doing this time different

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than than what you've done so far so

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this coming week we're doing what we

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call a minimum system uh test uh our

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system is designed so that one of the

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drug two drug parachutes can fail and

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one of the three main parachutes can

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fail

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and still safely land the vehicle so

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what we're doing this coming week is

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testing those failures one drug out and

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one main out in a sequence

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which is kind of an extreme condition

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for flight

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it also is good in terms of we're trying

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to understand more of the vehicle

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stability under those conditions

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underneath the parachutes and so

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obtaining the data on that will help

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engineers evaluate and predict the

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performance of the vehicle and the

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parachutes as a larger integrated system

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so you're taking the opportunity to find

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out how it's really worked not just what

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we thought on the design board yes

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exactly we use these tests to to go to

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the extremes and put the parachutes you

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know through a lot of work um

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in the in the extreme envelopes of the

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of the design

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to ensure that we have a safe system for

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the vehicle

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this sounds like a

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dumb question they say there are no dumb

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questions but

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why are parachutes for this vehicle so

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important

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well obviously the parachutes are very

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critical in the final phase of the

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descent of uh and landing a safe landing

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of a vehicle

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uh so you know the vehicle after

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re-entry it's going through the

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atmosphere once it gets into the thicker

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part of the atmosphere the rcs thrusters

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become less effective

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as well as we need to slow the vehicle

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down for a landing so we deploy the

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drogue parachutes around 310 miles per

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hour

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and that helps also stabilize the

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vehicle

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miles an hour and that's when we then

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deploy the main parachutes by using the

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pilot parachutes

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and so the main parachutes then slow the

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vehicle down to their final splashdown

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velocity of 17 miles an hour

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and that has a safe landing

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in the ocean

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is there any steering involved or is it

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just breaking uh it's mostly braking now

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that said we have we do use roll control

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underneath the parachute so the rcs

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thrusters still are used to orient the

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vehicle

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on the final landing if there are winds

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such that we're moving in a horizontal

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velocity

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so we're trying to keep the toe of the

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vehicle

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pointing forward and landing in the

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ocean first now i understand there's

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still one more test after this one we've

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been discussing in the eva engineering

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evaluation series and then you move on

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to what's called qualifying this the

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whole system for flight so what what

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does that set testing series look like

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yeah so our qualification testing is a

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series of eight full system uh

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full-scale tests

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that really put the final design which

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we're going to define in less than a

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month at our critical design review

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it'll put those those parachutes through

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the extreme conditions and environments

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that we want to expose them to to ensure

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that we have a safe system

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for final human certification for orion

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i mentioned that there was a successful

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uh flight test last year uh what did you

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learn about the parachutes at the end of

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that test back in december

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yeah so

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now while we do if for airdrop testing

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we we're able to heavily instrument and

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place cameras on the test vehicle that

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give us a lot of valuable engineering

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data and is the there's the bulk of what

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we use to

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predict the performance of the of the

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parachute system but they're they're

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when you have a reentry of a spacecraft

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you can learn some additional things

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that are just hard to represent uh even

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uh even doing air drop testing um an

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example is one of the things we learned

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is that the capsule wake or the weight

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that's generated behind the capsule is a

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little bit different than what we can

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test to

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and so we learned a little bit more

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insight about the drag performance over

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drug parachutes

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so we use that to tweak the models but

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in general the eft one flight that we

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had back in december was a very nominal

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flight and very consistent to the

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performance that we see when we do an

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air drop test in yume arizona which is i

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i take it a good thing if it's actually

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behaving the way you expected it to yes

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that's what we like to see we like to

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learn about the vehicle about the

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parachute system and what to change when

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we're doing these air drop tests which

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is the whole purpose of them so that

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when we have an actual uh spacecraft

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flight we have a safe system be eager to

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see what happens next week in arizona

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chris thanks very much you're welcome

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chris johnson is the orion capsule