Officials from NASA and SpaceX say they're monitoring a parachute issue with the Dragon spacecraft. Still, they don't anticipate any immediate action will be required.
A NASA official revealed Friday that one of the four major parachutes on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle took longer than planned to release when the capsule descended to Earth in January.
Business Insider said this is the second time the apparent defect has happened after a similar incident with a Dragon craft in November.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - APRIL 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flies to the International Space Station after blasting off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 23, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket with an international crew of four astronauts in a Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station.
SpaceX Dragon Capsule Experiences Parachute Problem
SpeceNews said an uncrewed SpaceX CRS-24 cargo ship splashed down off the coast of Florida on Jan. 24. The spacecraft experienced a delay in its four primary parachutes' deployment as it fell to the surface.
Although the delayed opening did not prevent the capsule from splashing down and eventually becoming fully inflated, a similar scenario occurred in the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 8, 2021, when a Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA's Crew-2 astronauts splashed down.
The crew landed safely, according to SpaceNews. However, one of their capsule's four primary parachutes was released 75 seconds later than the other three.
During the return of the SpaceX CRS-24 mission, crews saw a single main parachute that lagged during inflation, similar to the return of the Crew-2 mission, according to NASA official Josh Finch.
The vertical descent rate stayed within the system design margins at splashdown on both flights. All four primary parachutes were fully deployed before splashdown on both missions.
According to Finch, NASA and SpaceX are working together to analyze images from the CRS-24 splashdown and real hardware from the spacecraft's parachute system to see how well it functioned.
NASA, SpaceX's Learning Opportunity to Check Dragon Capsule Parachute Issue
There was no difference in mission success in either scenario; both Dragons splashed down without incident.
On the other hand, NASA and SpaceX are looking into the problem to make sure all is clear before any future crewed Dragon flights.
NASA had not had an official examination of the mishap. But Ars Technica said the space agency is just inspecting and checking on the gear as part of their standard routine.
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Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, indicated at a recent conference (per Space.com) that this is an excellent chance for their team to learn from.
He went on to say that having two sets of data so close together is "almost a blessing," underlining that the investigation would increase engineers' understanding of Dragon's parachutes, making the system safer and more resilient in the end.
Gerstenmaier also emphasized in a statement that this will be investigated appropriately, similar to what they did quickly following Crew-2.
Meanwhile, NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said the Dragon could land safely with only three of its major parachutes functioning properly.
According to Stich, the fourth chute is possibly not even necessary.
The CRS-24 Dragon's fall pace, according to Gerstenmaier, was roughly comparable to that of earlier Dragons that returned to Earth with four main chutes that all filled on time.
As a result, the parachute problem poses no safety concerns.
This is more of a learning exercise to see how their teams can improve their parachute design and technical expertise in the future.
Dragon Capsule Parfachutes Still OK Despite Weird Behavior
Both spaceflight partners claim that the parachutes are still performing safely despite the unusual behavior.
Following that, NASA and SpaceX executives held a press conference to discuss the parachutes ahead of SpaceX's next human trip aboard the Dragon spaceship. Both NASA and SpaceX have announced that they are looking into the data to learn more about the behavior.
Even if the fourth parachute is never released, NASA and SpaceX claim the Dragon will land smoothly.
According to The Verge, NASA said the spacecraft could land with one parachute totally gone and still be certified to do so successfully.
NASA and SpaceX backed up their allegation that this had happened previously. Officials said these trailing parachute phenomena with these big ring-cell parachutes. They also observed the same behavior in the previous testing and on other freight flights as well, they added. According to officials, three of the parachutes may "shadow" the other parachute as it deploys, forcing it to deploy more slowly.
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