Impact With The Ocean Likely Caused Booster Buckling

NASA officials said in a news conference Friday that two of the three 150-foot parachutes designed to slow the descent of the Ares I-X booster failed, causing it to be damaged when it impacted the water.

Mission manager Bob Ess told reporters one parachute deflated almost immediately after opening, and a second deployed only part way, meaning that the booster came back to the surface under what amounted to 1 1/2 parachutes.

"Don't play this too much," Ess urged reporters. "The parachute thing was like 'Hey, look at that.' We're not worried about that. There's no investigation. There's no unusual thing we're doing. We're just going through our usual post (flight) tests."

The Associated Press reports that engineers won't know for certain what caused the parachutes to fail until they have an opportunity to fully examine the booster, which arrived back at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday.

Ess said the powered portion of the flight looked "rock solid", but that there will be no definitive results until all the data is analyzed, which may take several weeks.

FMI: www.nasa.gov