April 10, 2014 at 17:05Slow down with NASA JPL
Still useful, this parachute! And the life of the pilot can be saved, and humanitarian aid delivered where necessary. And especially curious - even to land on a neighboring planet. Parachutes in space are a separate topic that deserves attention.
Under the cut, I will tell, but rather show the latest achievements of NASA in testing new "brake" models.
For starters, a little history of parachuting.
Parachutes were invented a long time ago - even Leonardo da Vinci was able to calculate the approximate area and shape necessary for the safe descent of a person through the air. However, while there was no need for it, there was not at least some kind of production. Parachutes entered our lives in the XVIII century - as a safety measure when flying in a balloon, and finally strengthened with the development of aviation. Today it is difficult to find a person who does not even secretly dream of an amateur jump from a height.
But resourceful humanity has found yet another useful application to this simple invention. From the beginning of space exploration, we began to use parachutes not only for landing, but also for% planetname% - the main thing is that the atmosphere of the object allows. It was not too sparse to use resistance. Well, too tight it is not necessarythat the spacecraft does not crash against the heavens , although in fact, in terms of landing, just such a property would be useful.
The descent vehicle enters the middle layers of the atmosphere of Titan.
It was the canopy of the parachute (lying on the surface of the neighboring planet for more than 40 years) that became one of the clues due to which it was recently foundSoviet spacecraft Mars-3. Yes, already in 1971 a comprehensive landing system was used - precisely because of the peculiarities of the atmosphere of Mars. First, an exhaust parachute was released, which released the main compartment (just tearing off the lid). When the fall rate dropped to transonic, the main parachute fully opened, and at an altitude of about 20 meters, like its exhaust brother, it disconnected from the apparatus, giving the right “brakes” to jet engines. As you can see, the apple did not fall far from the apple tree, in the literal sense - the dome indicated where to look.
An even more interesting landing story is with Curiosity. Among other features and innovationshiding securely in the capsule, the Curious released his parachute at double the speed of sound. At such enormous speeds, special parachutes are used. They are called “supersonic”. Super strong, super reliable - a true genius of engineering! Their main drawback is the size: after all, the heavier the device we want to land safely, the larger the area of the parachute should be. For the time being, one had to put up with such dimensions, but the question arose when testing the latest models of the LDSD (Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator - Low-Density Supersonic Moderator) system. The huge dome simply did not want to fit in the wind tunnel! How did NASA decide to handle this? Let's listen to them ourselves:
PS I translated and dubbed the video for the Russian-language segment, but if someone is looking for the original, here it is . By the way, there the whole NASA JPL channel speaks very well and readily about missions and plans. I advise.
Under the cut, I will tell, but rather show the latest achievements of NASA in testing new "brake" models.
For starters, a little history of parachuting.
Parachutes were invented a long time ago - even Leonardo da Vinci was able to calculate the approximate area and shape necessary for the safe descent of a person through the air. However, while there was no need for it, there was not at least some kind of production. Parachutes entered our lives in the XVIII century - as a safety measure when flying in a balloon, and finally strengthened with the development of aviation. Today it is difficult to find a person who does not even secretly dream of an amateur jump from a height.
But resourceful humanity has found yet another useful application to this simple invention. From the beginning of space exploration, we began to use parachutes not only for landing, but also for% planetname% - the main thing is that the atmosphere of the object allows. It was not too sparse to use resistance. Well, too tight it is not necessary
The descent vehicle enters the middle layers of the atmosphere of Titan.
It was the canopy of the parachute (lying on the surface of the neighboring planet for more than 40 years) that became one of the clues due to which it was recently foundSoviet spacecraft Mars-3. Yes, already in 1971 a comprehensive landing system was used - precisely because of the peculiarities of the atmosphere of Mars. First, an exhaust parachute was released, which released the main compartment (just tearing off the lid). When the fall rate dropped to transonic, the main parachute fully opened, and at an altitude of about 20 meters, like its exhaust brother, it disconnected from the apparatus, giving the right “brakes” to jet engines. As you can see, the apple did not fall far from the apple tree, in the literal sense - the dome indicated where to look.
An even more interesting landing story is with Curiosity. Among other features and innovationshiding securely in the capsule, the Curious released his parachute at double the speed of sound. At such enormous speeds, special parachutes are used. They are called “supersonic”. Super strong, super reliable - a true genius of engineering! Their main drawback is the size: after all, the heavier the device we want to land safely, the larger the area of the parachute should be. For the time being, one had to put up with such dimensions, but the question arose when testing the latest models of the LDSD (Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator - Low-Density Supersonic Moderator) system. The huge dome simply did not want to fit in the wind tunnel! How did NASA decide to handle this? Let's listen to them ourselves:
PS I translated and dubbed the video for the Russian-language segment, but if someone is looking for the original, here it is . By the way, there the whole NASA JPL channel speaks very well and readily about missions and plans. I advise.