The parachute just after deployment at the windtunnel test.

The Stratos II project is jet again one step closer to lift-off. On the 9th of April, the Capsule team has performed its second series of successful parachute experiments in the Open Jet Facility of the TU-Delft. In contrast to the previous experiments which were on chute stability and drogue vs. squid bag, these tests were made to closely observe two different folding techniques of the cross-shaped parachute and to verify a correct behavior of the newly designed ejection system.

In total 8 successful deployments were performed under the watchful eyes of four cameras: one High speed, one HD and two smaller ones. A number of interesting observations were made. First of all, the new ‘house’ folding method turned out to be less reliable in the deployment than the classical method, which deployed consistently. Secondly the drogue was well capable of removing the bag from the parachute. In one test the drogue however got entangled in the chute release mechanism, but released the main parachute without delays none the less. After close observation, the entanglement was blamed on the fact that the release mechanism was secured to the parachute bay. The third conclusion was that the new ejection system which now uses a compressed spring rather than a catapult performs satisfactory. The new ejection system is a little heavier, but has the advantage of improved simplicity, and can be more compact.

The next step for the capsule team is to prepare an in-flight test of the final two-stage deployment system.

Pictures
Some pictures of the windtunnel test can be found below here, videos of the deployment will follow later this week.

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