Airborne Systems

Under contract to the NASA Engineering and Safety Center's (NESC) at NASA Langley, Airborne Systems supported the MLAS program, an alternate launch abort concept for the Orion Crew Module. 

A mortar deployed 27.8 ft conical ribbon parachute. Next were two mortar deployed 27.8 conical ribbon parachutes which reoriented the capsule simulator and fairing. Following some flight for damping of the body motions, the capsule simulator was released and two more 27.8 ft conical ribbon parachutes were static line deployed to serve as the drogue stage for the capsule. Finally, the drogue parachutes removes the forward bay cover of the capsule and deployed four 64 ft military cargo parachutes that were modified (by AS) to with stand the flight environment and the available packing volume.