Atmospheric balloon descent system

An atmospheric balloon descent system comprising:

• a system housing configured for coupling with an atmospheric balloon system, the system housing includes:
• a drogue chamber, and
• a parachute chamber;
• a drogue chute within the drogue chamber;
• a parachute within the parachute chamber, the parachute coupled with the drogue chute with a drogue tether;
• a riser tether stored with the system housing, a descent system end portion of the riser tether coupled with the parachute and a balloon system end portion of the riser tether configured for coupling with an atmospheric balloon system;
• and
• wherein the descent system is configured to transition between riser deployment and parachute deployment configurations:
• in the riser deployment configuration the system housing is decoupled from the atmospheric balloon system and the riser tether is deployed between the system housing and the atmospheric balloon system, and
• in the parachute deployment configuration the deployed riser tether is configured to open the drogue chamber and deploy the drogue chute and the deployed drogue chute is configured to open the parachute chamber and deploy the parachute.

A method for deploying a descent system for an atmospheric balloon system comprising:

• dropping a system housing of the descent system from an inflight atmospheric balloon system with a riser tether coupled between the system housing and the atmospheric balloon system;
• deploying the riser tether between the system housing and the atmospheric balloon system according to the dropping;
• deploying a drogue chute from the dropped system housing, deploying the drogue chute includes:
• opening a drogue chamber of the system housing, opening triggered by deploying of the riser tether, and
• releasing the drogue chute from the drogue chamber according to the dropping;
• elevating the system housing with a parachute retained therein above the atmospheric balloon system including a deflated atmospheric balloon according to drag from the drogue chute, the system housing coupled with the atmospheric balloon system with the riser tether;
• and
• deploying the parachute from the elevated system housing according to drag from the drogue chute.