Airborne Systems to Make Recovery Parachutes for SpaceX Rocket and Capsule
Pennsauken,N.J. - 1 June, 2007
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Airborne Systems ' Space and Recovery Systems Engineering team has been selected to provide parachute recovery systems for two vehicles being developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). Airborne Systems of Pennsauken. NJ. said in a press release May 23.
The Recovery Systems Engineering team, formerly known as Irvin Aerospace, of Santa Ana, Calif. will design and manufacture parachutes and related equipment for the first two stages of SpaceX's planned Falcon 9 rocket as well as its Dragon capsule.
SpaceX of EI Segundo, Calif., is developing the Falcon 9 launcher for government and commercial customers. The Dragon is being developed with funding support from NASA's Commercial Orbital transportation Services (COTS) program as an alternative means of delivering supplies and possibly even astronauts to the international space station. "Our solution features a main parachute design from our family of large Ringsail products,'" Tony Taylor, technical director for the space market at Airbome Systems, said in a prepared statement. "The Ringsail was designed to handle the rigors of spacecraft recovery. Over the years, its unique design has proven its worth and is currently used on a number of spacecraft recovery programs including the parachute development on NASA's Orion Spacecraft.
In an interview, Taylor said the Ringsail design has been used by NASA since the beginning of the U.S. manned spaceflight program. Irvin-supplied parachutes were used on the Apollo program and are in use today on the space shuttle program, he said. Taylor said Airborne Systems will deliver hardware LO SpaceX in time to support a planned COTS flight test in 2008.
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