WE MOVED TO http://www.XPrizeNews.org
ANSARI X PRIZE Space Race News!

 
Armadillo Aerospace News: Parachute rigging, Heated catalyst
Our big parachute arrived on Friday, which is a huge relief for us. Three previous parachute companies have declined to work with us because they got the jitters over the fact that we were building rocket ships (Instead of just jump out of planes. Sheesh.). Strong Enterprises http://www.strongparachutes.com/ hasn’t batted an eye at our application, and the company president has been working with me on the details. To top it off, their price and delivery times are quite a bit better than what I got from Butler Parachutes before they bailed on us. Strong is also the parachute supplier for the Starchaser X-Prize team, who are using a steerable parachute for their capsule recovery.
Our parachute is a 64’ diameter round chute, extracted by a 9’ to 15’ diameter drogue, depending on application details. It turns out that we use a parachute basically the same size as the mercury capsule, because our entire vehicle landing weight is only a bit heavier than just the capsule. For our first test drop, we will have the drogue on a static line underneath a helicopter, but for free flights the drogue will be cannon-ejected, as on the subscale vehicle. Read More

posted by Sigurd @ 6/28/2003 03:38:00 AM