* Astronomy

 NASA has quietly released photos and video of a 31 July parachute test for its future Orion astronaut capsule that didn't go so well: the mockup capsule hit the ground pretty hard. Unsurprisingly, some have jumped on this, claiming that NASA is trying to cover up a failure.
The full story is a bit more complicated than that. I'm sure NASA wasn't eager to publicise this embarrassing episode, but it wasn't exactly a failure. There was a problem, yes, but it was in part of the test setup, rather than in the parachutes that would actually land an operational Orion after a trip to the space station or the Moon.

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