NASA Orion Splashdown Safety Tests Completed

DevotedSkeptic sends this news from NASA: "The 18,000-pound test article that mimics the size and weight of NASA's Orion spacecraft crew module recently completed a final series of water impact tests in the Hydro Impact Basin at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The campaign of swing and vertical drops simulated various water landing scenarios to account for different velocities, parachute deployments, entry angles, wave heights and wind conditions the spacecraft may encounter when landing in the Pacific Ocean. The next round of water impact testing is scheduled to begin in late 2013 using a full-sized model that was built to validate the flight vehicle's production processes and tools."

Comments

Re:Why water?

[rillopy]

In the 60's it used to have to do with geography/pop density - having a large enough unpopulated and flat area such that missing the landing zone by a large margin wouldn't land them in mountains or on a town. Russia has that, the USA did/does not.

Wait'll you see the Star Destroyer!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm still irritated they're misusing the name Orion, which is already associated with a particular type of spacecraft.