According to reports, test of the parachute system created for the Orion spacecraft was successful. The test was conducted on Wednesday. The Orion spacecraft could be used to carry humans to Mars someday in future.

The system was tested in the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Orion is the longed-for successor to the program and it is the first deep space capsule that NASA is creating in 40 years. A model capsule was used for the reason that the test was for the parachutes in place of the spacecraft.

The replica spacecraft successfully landed even when the parachutes failed to deploy, and there were only a few bumps.

According to CJ Johnson, project manager for Orion’s parachute system, “We test Orion’s parachutes to the extremes to ensure we have a safe system for bringing crews back to Earth on future flights, even if something goes wrong. Orion’s parachute performance is difficult to model with computers”. He added that because of this testing them in the air helps predict and evaluate working of the system in a better way.

Five parachutes were tested in this test out of the 11 parachutes Orion uses. The parachutes have been successfully tested a number of times, and only minor problems have been experienced that have been corrected.

Rex Walheim, space shuttle mission specialist, told The Christian Science Monitor’s Pete Spotts that any astronaut would love to fly the Orion. NASA has said that crewed missions in Orion will not start until at least 2020.