Russian, European Scientists Postpone Test Launch of Space Parachute

Moscow ITAR-TASS in English 1239 GMT 14 Dec 04

MOSCOW, December 14 (Itar-Tass) - A test launch of a "space parachute"
developed by Russian and European scientists has been put off until the
spring, the press secretary of Moscow's Lavochkin production and science
association, Lidia Avdeyeva, said.
"The participants in the projects - the Lavochkin association, the
European Space Agency and the European aerospace concern EADS-ST have
decided to postpone until the spring of the next year the launch of the
pneumatic braking device Demonstrator-2 that was planned for December," she
told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
"It has became clear during the preparation of the device for the
launch that additional tests of it are necessary for increasing the
reliability of the launch," Avdeyeva said.
Besides, "climatic conditions on Kamchatka, where the device is to
land, complicate the process of the search for it".
Demonstrator-2 is to be delivered into a suborbital trajectory on a
ballistic missile fired from Russia's submarine in the Barents Sea.
It is planned to that the device will be delivered in prospect to
the International Space Station (ISS) in Russia's supply ships Progress or
the European Space Agency's cargo ships ATV.
Demonstrator and a cargo attached to it are to be jettisoned from the
ISS and return to the earth on a set trajectory.
Before it enters the atmosphere, the parachute is to be inflated by
nitrogen, becoming an upturned two-level cone.
Special heat insulation will protect cargoes from a temperature of
6,000 decrees centigrade that emerges on the surface on the cone during the
re-entry.
Demonstrator is supposed to bring from orbit cargoes weighing tens of
tonnes, and returning them on the parachute to be much cheaper as compared
to the use of shuttles and Russia's manned spacecraft Soyuz that are a main
means of cargo transportation to the earth, Avdeyeva said.
The device could be used in prospect not only for cargo recovery but
also for evacuation of ISS crews and soft landings on other planets,
scientists believe.
Three previous launches of the "space parachute" have proved
unsuccessful.