As humanity (and specifically NASA) explores other worlds, they need to be able to safely insert increasingly larger crafts into the alien atmosphere. The LDSD system is designed to do just that and NASA was testing it today by lifting it to the edge of space on a balloon, dropping it, fire its rockets to get up to MACH 4! (wow) and then decelerating within the upper atmo. I just finished watching this test live online (thank you NASA) and it was fascinating. I love watching the teams coordinate and follow the level of detail that they put into their test plans. Its a thing of beauty. The test had one major hiccup. The main chute deployed but did not inflate. Ive been watching tests like this vicariously via the internet for years and knew immediately that the shoot was having a problem. I pointed at my screen and said to Vidya, Thats a problem. The chute is not fully inflated! just as the Team Lead echoed my observation with the alert: BAD CHUTE! BAD CHUTE. The chute on this spacecraft is the largest ever built and could only be tested in the field so this is not terrible. Today was about the craft and as a bonus they got to test the chute for the first time. The first test of the chute for Curiosity literally exploded in the test facility leaving them with a pile of rags. This chute deployed, stayed intact, but never fully inflated so it probably just needs to have the cabling tweaked. Of course it will take them (appropriately) months and months to figure out what those tweaks are and apply them. The spacecraft carries a black box which they are now recovering and it will be back on Hawaii in a day or two. Ill be interested in what they find and will check back in a few days to see what they learned. Im so thankful to NASA for their willingness to broadcast these events. Go Team Space Explorers! bit.ly/NASALDSD
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 21:46:45 +0000
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