George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: This is Ares Launch Control, at T-2 hours, 27 minutes, 40 seconds and counting.
And here in the Mission Director's Center we're being joined by Terry McGugin,
who is the manager of parachute operations for United Space Alliance.
And he has been responsible for a lot of the activity that we have seen in that video -- just,
that we've just played -- that has involved with getting these chutes ready for the Ares I-X booster to fly today.
And Terry, I want to first of all, can you tell us how many, how many chutes are actually on it?
And how does it differ from the chutes that are on the shuttle?
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: Sure, George. I'd be glad to talk about that a little bit.
Same components -- same number of components -- is on a shuttle mission.
There's three main parachutes, one drogue and one pilot parachute for the Ares.
They're different in construction and materials, but they're running the same purpose.
And the process, once it comes in aerodynamically and we start throwing the parachutes,
it's very similar to what we do on the shuttle missions.
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?
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: No, not for this mission.
There are parachutes that will be there on the Orion capsule eventually.
But those are different parachutes then what we're doing in my shop.
George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: What's the very first chute that we're going to see?
If we have a chance to see this visually, that's going to come out here this morning?
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: Sure, yeah.
The first parachute is called the pilot parachute -- it comes out first -- and its job is basically to pull out the drogue parachute.
So it immediately pulls out the drogue parachute, out of its deployment bag.
The drogue parachute orients the vehicle more or less in line and gets it to where it's not tilted over too far.
And then the main parachutes deploy. And those are deployed on altitude-switch
sensors that determine when these parachutes get deployed.
George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: So, can you give us an idea then,
after the separation occurs from the upper stage and the first stage,
how soon after that do we see the first chute come out? Or does it fall for awhile first?
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: Actually, it falls quite awhile.
You don't see the parachutes until way late in the game.
The booster separates from the upper stage and it goes through a tumble maneuver and then an aerodynamic re-entry.
And it comes quite a ways down into the atmosphere.
I believe that these are set to go off at about 15,000 feet is where we start arming up the pilot parachute.
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...
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: The Liberty is going to pick up the booster.
It'll be, a lot a ways it's going to be similar to an SRB mission, but we've got a different orientation.
It's a longer vehicle. It's actually a five segment booster -- course, for this mission, the fifth segment is non-functional.
It's not really a motor, it's just a simulator. But, it's a longer booster,
and so we have some different dynamics about how it lays in the water and stuff.
But they're just going to go up and get a hold of the booster, retrieve the parachutes, get them reeled on board.
Course, on this mission, we're only going to get back the three mains.
The drogue parachute stays attached to the forward skirt extension,
and that does not have flotation for this test flight -- and so we won't retrieve that.
Whereas on an SRB mission for the shuttle system, we retrieve all the parachutes.
George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: Well, Terry, thank you very much. We appreciate that further explanation, and of course,
the tape showing some of your team in action there getting the chutes for this mission ready to go. So...
Terry McGugin/Parachute Refurbishment Facility Manager: It's a great team, George.
I had some awesome people working with me. So, thank you very much.
George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: Thank you. And we're now at T-2 hours, 23 minutes, 52 seconds and counting.
This is Ares Launch Control.