NASA's Orion Spacecraft One Step Closer to a Manned Mission [VIDEO]

NASA's test version of the Orion spacecraft successfully completed a complicated, high-altitude test Wednesday using just two of its three parachutes.

The event, which gave researchers a chance to study how one parachute pulling away in mid-flight might affect the remaining two, marked the tenth in a series of evaluations designed to test the parachute system of the capsule currently slated to become the agency's next manned spaceship.

"We wanted to know what would happen if a cable got hooked around a sharp edge and snapped off when the parachutes deployed," Stu McClung, Orion's landing and recovery system manager, said in a press release. "We don't think that would ever happen, but if it did, would it cause other failures? We want to know everything that could possibly go wrong, so that we can fix it before it does.

During the test flight the prototype was dropped from 35,000 feet in the air over the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona, besting its former record by 10,000 feet and marking the highest-altitude test of a human spacecraft parachute since NASA's Apollo Program, which ended in 1972.

During its return from space, Orion's parachute system is planned to begin deployment 25,000 feet above the ground.

"The closer we can get to actual flight conditions, the more confidence we gain in the system," Chris Johnson, project manager for the Orion capsule parachute assembly system, said in a press release. "What we saw today -- other than the failures we put in on purpose -- is very similar to what Orion will look like coming back during Exploration Flight Test-1's Earth entry next year."

According to NASA officials, the system already meets the necessary requirements for Orion's first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), planned for September 2014.

At that point, Orion will travel 3,600 miles into orbit then return to Earth at speeds as fast as 20,000 mph, once again putting the parachute system to the test before landing in the Pacific Ocean.