Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., dropped a 10,000-kilogram mock-up of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) into a 6-meter deep Hydro Impact Basin as part of a test program aimed at certifying the capsule for water landings. A total of three drop tests were planned for July to verify that the newly constructed facility is ready for a more rigorous series of tests slated to being in September.
Those tests, according to a July 22 NASA press release, will involve a slightly modified test article that is more representative of the actual MPCV.
