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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: This is Ares Launch Control, at T-2 hours, 27 minutes, 40 seconds and counting.

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And here in the Mission Director's Center we're being joined by Terry McGugin,

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who is the manager of parachute operations for United Space Alliance.

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And he has been responsible for a lot of the activity that we have seen in that video -- just,

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that we've just played -- that has involved with getting these chutes ready for the Ares I-X booster to fly today.

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And Terry, I want to first of all, can you tell us 
how many, how many chutes are actually on 
it?

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And how does it differ from the chutes that are on the shuttle?

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager:  Sure, George. I'd be glad to talk about that a little bit.

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Same components -- same number of components -- is on a shuttle mission.

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There's three main parachutes, one drogue and one pilot parachute for the Ares.

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They're different in construction and materials, but they're running the same purpose.

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And the process, once it comes in 
aerodynamically and we start throwing the 
parachutes,

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it's very similar to what we do on the shuttle missions.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  Now, is there any kind of a chute at all on the second stage, the upper stage? Or not?

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager:  No, not for this mission.

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There are parachutes that will be there on the Orion capsule eventually.

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But those are different parachutes then what we're doing in my shop.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  What's the very first chute that we're going to see?

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If we have a chance to see this visually, that's going to come out here this morning?

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager:  Sure, yeah.

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The first parachute is called the pilot parachute -- it comes out first -- and its job is basically to pull out the drogue parachute.

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So it immediately pulls out the drogue parachute, out of its deployment bag.

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The drogue parachute orients the vehicle more or less in line and gets it to where it's not tilted over too far.

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And then the main parachutes deploy. And 
those are deployed on altitude-switch

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sensors that determine when these parachutes get deployed.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  So, 
can you give us an idea then,

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after the separation occurs from the upper stage and the first stage,

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how soon after that do we see the first chute come out? Or does it fall for awhile first?

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager:  Actually, it falls quite awhile.

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You don't see the parachutes until way late in the game.

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The booster separates from the upper stage and it goes through a tumble maneuver and then an aerodynamic re-entry.

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And it comes quite a ways down into the 
atmosphere.

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I believe that these are set to go off at about 15,000 feet is where we start arming up the pilot parachute.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  Now, how is the retrieval by the ships different? I think it's actually the Liberty Star that's...

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager:  The Liberty is going to pick up the booster.

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It'll be, a lot a ways it's going to be similar to an SRB mission, but we've got a different orientation.

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It's a longer vehicle. It's actually a five segment booster -- course, for this mission, the fifth segment is non-functional.

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It's not really a motor, it's just a simulator. But, it's a longer booster,

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and so we have some different dynamics about how it lays in the water and stuff.

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But they're just going to go up and get a hold of the booster, retrieve the parachutes, get them reeled on board.

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Course, on this mission, we're only going to 
get back the three mains.

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The drogue parachute stays attached to the forward skirt extension,

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and that does not have flotation for this test 
flight -- and so we won't retrieve that.

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Whereas on an SRB mission for the shuttle system, we retrieve all the parachutes.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  Well, Terry, thank you very much. We appreciate that further explanation, and of course,

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the tape showing some of your team in action there getting the chutes for this mission ready to go. So...

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Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment 
Facility Manager:  It's a great team, George.

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I had some awesome people working with me. So, thank you very much.

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George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator:  Thank you. And we're now at T-2 hours, 23 minutes, 52 seconds and counting.

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This is Ares Launch Control.

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