This coming Sunday our parachute department will take another step in testing our DIY main parachutes for space capsule Tycho Deep Space.
These cross parachutes have previously been tested using the gantry crane at Lindoe Space Test Center. This test showed that our parachute bag system and initial deployment was performing as expected. However, this test, from a 110-meter-high gantry crane, could not provide us with a correct velocity deployment thus leaving us with no knowledge of what kind of sliders to be added to the parachutes to control the deployment speed.
Sunday Mads Stenfatt and crew will go to the north part of Denmark (Aars) where we will perform four manned test jumps in collaboration with Nordjysk Faldskærmsklub, NJFK.
An experienced jumper will leave a Cessna 182 from an altitude of 2 km performing an immediate static line deployment of one of our main parachutes strapped on his bag.
At 1.5 km he must release the test parachute and perform another free fall until 1 km, where he will deploy his regular private parachute. This is a standard procedure for testing new parachute type.
The irony in all this is that you are not allowed to throw any ballast out from a plane to test parachutes - only if that ballast is a living person. Rules are weird that way.
The point of this test is to determine what kind of sliders to be added the parachute. A slider is a ring of fabric that forces down the parachute lines during the period of canopy deployment. Depending on the type, size and material of the slider, the movement down the lines can either be fast or quick, creating a slow or fast deployment of the canopy. What we want is to be slow, avoiding hard accelerations on the parachute system, lines, capsule and person.
Good luck guys!
And thank you so much NJFK for this wonderful support!!!
Ad Astra
Kristian von Bengtson
