Cabin crew dropped from helo, floats safely into Lake Ontario

The Canadian Arrow team, one of two Canadian contenders out of a worldwide 26 teams vying for the $10 million Ansari X-Prize, has successfully completed a test run of their cabin crew.

The team dropped their test cabin crew from a helicopter at an altitude of 2,400 meters. A few minutes later, the cabin floated onto the waters of Lake Ontario. According to Geoff Sheerin, team leader, the test results were better than planned. "We had prepared for different things going wrong and we didn't have to use any of those preparations," Sheerin said.

Divers swam out to the cabin once it touched down on the water to recover it and its parachutes. The chutes will then be dried and repacked within a period of two weeks to make sure the team can meet the X-Prize requirement of a second launch within that timeframe.

Sheerin said the Canadian team's next test will simulate a mission abort after being launched by a rocket. "If the astronauts were on top of the booster, and there was a problem with that booster and they had to leave immediately, if they were in danger, these rockets would pull that crew cabin away," Sheerin explained.

The Canadian Arrow team has not announced a launch date for their spacecraft, but the da Vinci Project has; they will launch Wild Fire on October 2, just days from the date the Rutans are scheduled to launch their first of two flights to claim the prize.

FMI: www.canadianarrow.com, www.xprize.org