Performance of a conical ribbon drogue parachute in the wake of a subscale Orion command module

Ten percent of full-scale Orion conical ribbon drogue parachutes in the wake of a 10% command module were tested in a subsonic 3×2.1 m (10'×7') cross section, subsonic atmospheric wind tunnel. The motivation behind the test program is to provide a cost-efficient means to provide both parachute performance data in the wake of the Command Module (CM), and a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics validation dataset, including velocity field measurement in the wake. The subscale parachutes are constructed with the full-scale geometric porosity, number of gores and ribbons, using a novel laser cutting technique. The wind tunnel allows full exploration of the parameter space, including CM pitch plane angle, dynamic pressure (Reynolds number), and trailing distance.