Dragon Parachutes

Does anyone know if the parachutes that failed on Ares1 X are the same as those intended for Orion?

If so the Dragon is going to use the same 'chutes. I wonder if the Ares failure is going to affect the COTS testing cycle any.

Doubt it, all equipment fails time to time. Just because this set failed, does not mean the company that produced it, or the design are inherently dangerous. But I will guarantee you that questions will be asked.

SpaceX has taken to building everything in-house. I would guess they would be making their own parachutes and hoping to possibly become the Orion parachute contractor in the future.

Seriously doubt it. They only build in house when the costs/lead times/quality don't meet their standard.

Irvin Aerospace's parachutes have a great track record, and their design team has always been VERY flexible with their customers. Considering SpaceX will be using 3 different Chute systems on the Falcon 9, doubt they want the headache if the price is right.

I took a tour of their facilities a couple months ago. The nice engineer mentioned that they were using the same manufacturer and system as Orion. I don't know if that means the exact same chutes or just the same basic design.

Might be neither. Given the different weight of the vehicles both size and design could well be different.

On the other hand, I was reading up on the Mars Rovers (Spririt and Opportunity) and they used same design as the original Viking exploration mission just sized up.

So my bet, for what it's worth, is that the design will be similar if not the same, however the sizing (material strength, diameter, etc) will be modified to accomodate the different vehicle characteristics.

Cheers.

PS Hopefully someone out there can provide a definitive answer

Don't count me as an 'in the know' person, but It wouldn't surprise me if the chute design used on ARES-1X, Orion, and Dragon, and the falcon9 are the same basic design going back to Apollo and earlier. sure the specifics would be different to account for loading, though they're all circular, staged open designs. makes me wonder who first figured out why that was the best approach.

Parachute test successful:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VHl1OPeOSOs/T ... GP2443.JPG

Nice picture showing 3 full chutes and 2 drogues.