NASA is sending new and bigger spaceships to Mars, which means they need bigger supersonic parachutes. So big, in fact, that they don’t fit in any wind tunnel anymore, so their engineers had to find new ways to test them. New crazy ways. Really crazy. In fact, it’s the craziest test they got so far.
Because most of us will never take the literal leap of jumping off a damn plane, here’s POV footage from the Leap Frogs aka the Navy’s parachute team. For the San Diego Padre’s home opener, the jumpers took off in a plane and landed right smack inside Petco Park. You can hear the roar of the crowd grow louder as they get closer.
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The only bad thing about this paragliding flight over the Great Wall of China is that it is way too short. I would love to do the entire thing like this guy.
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Just over a year ago on October 14, 2012, daredevil Felix Baumgartner made history with his daring jump from 128,000 feet – setting a record for the world’s highest skydive. Baumgartner exceeded speeds of 825 mph and broke the sound barrier without the use of an aircraft. One of the coolest things about the jump was that there were cameras everywhere to capture the record setting feat.
Video footage captured by some of those cameras has already been viewed, but there were cameras attached to the balloon and to Baumgartner himself, much of which hasn’t been shared publicly. The footage from the cameras attached to the balloon and Baumgartner have now been put together and used to create a documentary commemorating the entire launch. To go along with the upcoming documentary, Red Bull has now offered up footage of the jump from the Baumgartner’s perspective.
The video includes embedded statistics such as air speed, elevation, and biometrics. Check out the 9-minute-plus clip above to see this epic feat from the jumper’s point of view. Be sure to set the video to 1080p and full-screen mode for the best experience. It starts out chaotically, but gradually lulls you into a strange calmness as Baumgartner gets closer to the Earth.
[via Forbes]
Ideally, Astronauts want to return to Earth in fully functional space capsules, but sometimes things can go awry. That’s why NASA is making a point of testing the Orion spacecraft’s parachute deployment system for failures. The team’s latest parachute test saw a test capsule falling from 25,000 feet with two of three drogue chutes rigged to fail and for one of two main parachutes to skip its inflation stage — despite the handicap, the empty craft landed safely. “Parachute deployment is inherently chaotic and not easily predictable,” Explains the Orion’s landing and recovery system manager, Stu McClung. “The end result can be very unforgiving. That’s why we test. If we have problems with the system, we want to know about them now.” NASA plans to perform additional parachute tests at higher altitudes in July to help balance and reduce risk for Orion’s crew. Check out NASA’s official press release and a brief video of the test after the break.
Filed under: Science
This is not Captain America, but it’s as close as you will ever get to feeling like a real superhero. His name is Robert Zackery, an he is a jumpmaster assigned to the USAF’s 4th Air Support Operations Group. More »
I’ve heard of cameras being rugged, but surviving a 12,500-foot drop is quite impressive. A skydiver apparently lost his GoPro camera on the way down and it managed to survive the fall, in fact, well enough to record its owner’s landing a few minutes later.
Lucas Damm was skydiving in Canada with some friends, and was using his GoPro camera to catch all of the action. It was mounted on his helmet in a protective case, but was knocked out when he clipped it on the plane’s door while leaving. It spun wildly and fell to the ground, but landed upright and into the right direction to catch the skydiver’s landing.
Lucas noticed that the camera was missing only after he had landed. However, one of his friends noticed a shiny object and they discovered the still-functioning GoPro. It may sound like a fake or a publicity stunt for GoPro, but Lucas swears that it’s legit.
[via DVice]
NASA has always used the desert as its own personal playground, and we’d imagine that its team had a blast in Arizona yesterday, as a mock parachute compartment of the Orion spacecraft was dropped from 25,000 feet above Earth. The dart-shaped object experienced free fall for 5,000 feet, at which point, drogue chutes were deployed at 20,000 feet. This was then followed by pilot chutes, which then activated the main chutes. As you’d imagine, these things are monsters: the main parachutes — three in all — each measure 116 feet wide and weigh more than 300 pounds. Better yet, the mission was successful.
Naturally, all of this is in preparation for Orion’s first test flight — currently scheduled for 2014 — where the unmanned craft will travel 15 times further than the ISS and jam through space at 20,000 mph before returning to Earth. Yesterday’s outing is merely one in a series of drop tests, and yes, it’s important to remove any unknowns from the situation: eventually, humans will be along for the ride.
NASA completes successful parachute drop simulation for Orion spacecraft originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In just a few hours the Mars Curiosity Rover will be on the surface of Mars. During the seven minutes of terror that will precede touch down, many things must work perfectly. The first critical piece is the parachute. More »
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