Every part of the rocket, its attachment to the parachute, and installation into the airplane had to be looked at, redesigned, and tested.
Rocket testing took a few different forms. There was the generation of thrust/time curves which was just a rocket on a fixed stand. There was also extraction testing where we extract a packed parachute out of the bucket to look at various aspects of that dynamic event.
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| Rocket Motor Test Stand |
Like all good testing, we learned many things, especially in the extraction testing. Early developmental extraction tests showed us that we needed a different incremental bridle. So we did some testing of different incremental bridles in a ground test fixture before doing another extraction test.
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| Incremental Bridle Test Before Dropping Weight |
We also found that the exhaust plume was longer on the new rocket and we needed to change and increase the thermal protection for the incremental bridle. We tested several concepts for that in a ground fixture before doing more extraction testing.
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| Thermal Protection Test (before on top, and during on bottom) |
Technology helped along the way as we were able to use high speed video to show us what was happening in these very fast event sequences. We utilized many different static tests and laboratory based dynamic tests to prove out concepts and designs before doing prototype and finally certification testing of the CAPS system.
