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Testing of Russian "space parachute" for returning cargoes to earth postponed

Posted on: Tuesday, 23 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 23 September: Tests of the Russian "space parachute" Demonstrator-2 have been postponed until May 2004, the press secretary of the Babakin scientific research centre, Lidiya Avdeyeva, told an ITAR-TASS correspondent. It had been planned earlier to launch the Demonstrator-2 into a suborbital trajectory with the aid of a Shtil rocket from a Russian Navy nuclear-powered submarine in October of this year. The centre said the experimental launch had been postponed because of "the need for another thorough check of all of the equipment".

According to Avdeyeva, the "parachute" will soon be able to return cargoes weighing tens of tonnes from orbit. "Its use for the descent will be considerably cheaper than that of shuttles and manned Soyuz craft, which are currently the only means of delivering cargoes to earth," Avdeyeva said.

The device will be delivered to the International Space Station folded up. After the cargo is secured, the device separates from the station and descends to earth along a given trajectory. Before entering the atmosphere, the "parachute""is inflated" with nitrogen, turning into an inverted two-level cone. "A special flexible heat-shield makes it possible to deliver cargoes intact, even though the temperature on the surface of the cone reaches 6,000 degrees," Avdeyeva stressed.

The three previous attempts to check the work of the apparatus in action were unsuccessful because of faults with the booster-rocket. "If the May tests are successful, the device may in future be used not only to return cargoes, but also to evacuate the crew from the International Space Station and for soft landings on other planets," Avdeyeva said.

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