The team developing the landing system for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory
tested the deployment of an early parachute design in mid-October 2007
inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, California.
In this image, an engineer is dwarfed by the parachute, which holds more
air than a 280-square-meter (3,000-square-foot) house and is designed to
survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds).
The parachute, built by Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Connecticut, has
80 suspension lines, measures more than 50 meters (165 feet) in length,
and opens to a diameter of nearly 17 meters (55 feet). It is the largest
disk-gap-band parachute ever built and is shown here inflated in the test
section with only about 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) of clearance to both the
floor and ceiling.
The wind tunnel, which is 24 meters (80 feet) tall and 37 meters (120 feet)
wide and big enough to house a Boeing 737, is part of the National
Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, operated by the U.S. Air Force, Arnold
Engineering Development Center.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is building and
testing the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for launch in 2009. The
mission will land a roving analytical laboratory on the surface of Mars
in 2010. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.
