Video: NASA's Orion spacecraft replica successful drop test with defected parachute

New Delhi : NASA on Friday tested partial parachute failure on a replica Orion spacecraft to check its ability to land safely in case of emergency.

Replica Orion spacecraft was dropped from an Air Force transport aircraft to a southwestern Arizona desert site.

The researchers deliberately failed one our of three parachutes on the Orion spacecraft. Interestingly, it managed to land fine even with two working parachutes.

Jim McMichael, a NASA systems engineer, said the 10-ton (10.16-metric ton) replica was "sitting perfectly upright" after bouncing once when it landed at the Yuma Proving Ground, an Army installation.

The Orion spacecraft has been designed to carry four astronauts deep in the space. 

McMichael said the replica is the same weight and width as the actual spacecraft but shorter so it would fit in the C-17. A NASA team planned to pick up the parachutes and truck them and the replica to the Yuma airport used as the staging site for the parachute testing.

The test on Friday was the fifth of a series of eight Orion parachute tests that began in 2016 and that will end in late 2018, he said.