YUMA, AZ – NASA says preliminary indicators look good after a parachute system test today. A test capsule was dropped from 25,000 feet over the Yuma Proving Grounds around eight o'clock this morning.
With the Orion space program, NASA is setting its sights on taking humans to asteroids, Mars and beyond. The parachute system helps ensure those astronauts return safely to Earth.
"Orion is NASA's next generation space craft and it's important to the nation and it's important to NASA because it's the vehicle that will finally take us to an asteroid and onto Mars. Further than we're ever gone before," explains NASA Public Affairs Officer, Joshua Byerly.
The five mile high drop is the fifth in a series of 18 tests to perfect the parachute system for the ambitious space program.
"Everything looked nominal. All the parachutes deployed properly and in the sequence we were expecting, so current indications look like we had a very successful test," says Chris Johnson, NASA Aeronautical Engineer.
The first unmanned Orion mission is scheduled to launch about two years from now. NASA says manned missions to Mars aren't expected before 2030.
The test comes in the same week mankind first stepped onto the moon 43 years ago on July 20, 1969.
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