Parachute Cord Tension Sensor

To design and fabricate a light weight (few oz), very small (~2 inch length) parachute cord tension sensor demonstrator device. A major challenge for the CPAS (The parachute system for the Orion/MPCV vehicle) program is to estimate the jerk load during parachute deployment. Accurate determination of this jerk load would enable proper selection and sizing of not just the parachute cords but the entire parachute attach structure on the vehicle. At present, this is estimated using analytical methods based on fluid mechanics principles. Current sensors that may be attached to the parachute cords tend to be very heavy, occupy too much volume and potentially interfere with the parachute deployment process. Instrumenting 60+ parachute cords with these large sensors would thus not be viable. The proposed sensor will alleviate these issues. The CPAS project manager did express the desire for such a device. More »