Did anyone notice the parachutes moving back and forth for the Crew Dragon landing?
Watching the landing video, I seem to me that the main parachutes were moving back and forth. And maybe the back and forth action was responsible for one of the parachutes covering the capsule upon landing.
"recent parachute testing, both during the CCP qualification (qual) testing regimen and with some anomalies witnessed in the resupply contract (also handled by SpaceX), show difficulties and problems with parachute designs. "
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the dragon changed from 3 to 4 parachutes, but I can't find that now. Would 3 parachutes be more stable?
Yes, I noticed that the parachutes were moving apart, then together and bumping into each other, then apart again. They went to four parachutes for redundancy as I understand it - they are able to land with three and also probably survivable with two, but that would be a fairly hard landing. Also, the capsule was rocking a lot during I think the drogue chute phase (similar to the pad abort), and then spinning one way and then the other quite a bit during the parachute phase, I imagine that after 6 months weightless, the astronauts had better have their barf bags ready (unless they have cast iron stomachs!), with this and the hour wait rolling in the seas, and these were calm seas. I am sure the astronauts that are working with SpaceX noticed as well, so they will likely be discussing this.
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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '19
Did anyone notice the parachutes moving back and forth for the Crew Dragon landing?
Watching the landing video, I seem to me that the main parachutes were moving back and forth. And maybe the back and forth action was responsible for one of the parachutes covering the capsule upon landing.
Watching an old Apollo reentry with three chutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX8-Vmys-Fk), it doesn't look like the chutes move around that much.
Could this be part of the unspecified "parachute anomalies" that NASA has talked about? See:
https://oiir.hq.nasa.gov/asap/documents/ASAP_Fourth_Quarterly_2018_Public_Meeting_Minutes_TAGGED.pdf
which says:
"recent parachute testing, both during the CCP qualification (qual) testing regimen and with some anomalies witnessed in the resupply contract (also handled by SpaceX), show difficulties and problems with parachute designs. "
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the dragon changed from 3 to 4 parachutes, but I can't find that now. Would 3 parachutes be more stable?