Music.
At the Parachute Refurbishment Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida,
booster recovery parachutes are being prepared and packed for the Ares I-X flight test targeted for the summer of 2009.
Aided by an overhead monorail system, experienced parachute technicians begin the
packing process by delicately stepping into the canister and tying down sections of the canopy.
Each 2,000-pound canopy consists of strong strips of material sewn together in a lattice-work design,
which looks similar to a pie-crust top, suspended by 165-foot suspension lines.
This design allows the wind to flow through the blossoming canopy, stabilizing the entire stack.
The intricate packing process and specific placement in the canister is important for the canopy to open properly.
The three colossal-sized parachutes cover more than two acres when opened and each chute from end-to-end is 325 feet long.
Designed larger and stronger than the space shuttle booster recovery system,
the Ares system requires three chutes to support a more than 200,000-pound object falling from an altitude of 189,000 feet.
Although the chutes are bigger than their shuttle predecessors,
they still fit into the same-sized container thanks to the use of Kevlar,
a material that makes the Ares parachutes stronger and lighter.
Technicians, using a hydraulic press and hand tools, compress the contents to fit
snugly inside its canvas cover bag, completing the packing process.
The parachute system will enable the spent rocket boosters to gently float back to Earth splashing in the ocean
where they'll be recovered by NASA's Freedom Star and Liberty Star recovery ships.
In the future, the Ares launch vehicle will carry the Orion capsule with four to
six astronauts on board, to the International Space Station and onto the moon.