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To: MtnClimber

You may be surprised to know that here in a rural corner of England, the middle of Devon, we have some local pride about our small contribution to this. The fabric for the parachute was developed, and the parachute canopy itself made, by Heathcoats, a factory in our nearby town. This was a traditional English woollen mill, dating from the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Rather than disappearing without trace, as did most of its kind, when cheap fabrics from the East began to flood the market from the 1970s, it reinvented itself as a developer and producer of hi-tec fabrics for low-volume specialist applications such as this.
It also developed and made the fabrics for the previous NASA Mars landers.


22 posted on 02/21/2021 5:27:39 AM PST by Winniesboy
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To: Winniesboy

Well they certainly did a great job with that parachute! That parachute had to open at very high velocity. The Rover experienced a 9g shock when the parachute opened and the parachute held together through it all.


23 posted on 02/21/2021 5:43:23 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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