Ares I-X On-board High Speed Main Parachute Footage

Presented by http://collectSPACE.com -- The Source for Space History and Artifacts.

View from internal first stage high speed camera of the Ares I-X main recovery parachutes as they deploy and lower the solid rocket booster to an ocean splashdown on October 28, 2009.

Only one of the three 150-foot parachutes inflated fully. Of the other two, one failed to deploy and the other only partially inflated due to problems encounter with their riser supports.

Video credit: NASA

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• Ares
• I-X
• parachutes
• camera
• high-speed
• launch

[furgee]

I am not airborne yet so i dont know much about parachutes but it looks to me like when the 2 remaining chutes flared, the one on the right may have had more air in it, hence making it tougher, and when it connected with the other it knocked air from the other and could not re-fill because it's aerodynamics had changed. What do you guys think?

[lurion]

@callmeshane303 Redundancy. The possibilities of all three chutes failing at the same time are very slim. If you just have one and it happens to fail then you're screwed. Also it's easier to distribute weight over three smaller chutes than one big one.

[callmeshane303]

Why do they have to deploy 3 chutes, what is wrong with them?

Me thinks ONE big chute seems to be a whole heap less complicated.

[ronhunt40]

You can see one of the shroud lines on the center, (lower) chute fail at 0:26

[Tubeglowfun]

I'm no expert, but that didn't seem to have gone well. One parachute didn't open at all. The second one failed later. The lines appear to be shreaded, and some snap completely. Could someone elaborate on what it is we are actually seeing? I'm not finding much info about it.

[exalotyle]

where is the third chute ?