Aug 31 2018
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-129 NASA Invites Media to Witness Final Orion Parachute Test in Arizona Desert
NASA is inviting media to view the final test of the Orion spacecraft’s parachute system on Wednesday, Sept. 12, at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. This test is the last in a series of eight to qualify the parachutes for crewed Orion missions to the Moon and beyond.
Media will have the opportunity to view the test at the desert drop zone and participate in on-location interviews with Orion Program Manager Mark Kirasich, astronauts Randy Bresnik and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, and key program officials. Media also will be able to take a close look at the engineering model used for the test.
U.S. media who would like to attend must contact Laura Rochon at 281-483-5111 or laura.a.rochon@nasa.gov or by 5 p.m. EDT Sept. 5.
The Orion test capsule will be dropped from an altitude of more than six miles to verify the spacecraft’s system of 11 parachutes, forward bay covers, cannon-like mortars and pyrotechnic devices successfully work in sequence to slow the capsule’s descent.
To date, tests have evaluated Orion’s parachute performance during normal landing sequences, as well as several failure scenarios, and a variety of potential environmental and weather conditions to ensure astronauts can return safely from deep space missions.
Orion parachute engineers also have provided considerable insight and data to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program partners. NASA has improved computer modeling of how the system works in various scenarios and helped partner companies understand certain elements of parachute systems. In some cases, NASA’s work has provided enough information for the partners to reduce the need for some developmental parachute tests.
The parachutes for Orion’s upcoming uncrewed flight test on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, Exploration Mission-1, already are loaded into the capsule at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-131 NASA Invites Media to View Spacecraft to Study the Frontier of Space
NASA is inviting media to view NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) spacecraft Thursday, Oct. 4, ahead of its scheduled launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket Saturday, Oct. 6, at 4 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida.
ICON will study Earth’s ionosphere to help determine the physical process at play in this frontier of space where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather from above and pave the way for mitigating its effects on our technology and society.
Media will be able to interview ICON team members, see the rocket, and tour Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 “Stargazer” aircraft that will carry the rocket over the Atlantic Ocean, where it will detach and carry ICON into orbit.
