Engineers at NASA are using National Instruments' LabVIEW graphical instrumentation software to research, test and manufacture the Crew Return Vehicle (CRV), a small shuttle attached to the International Space Station that will serve as a 'lifeboat', returning the space station crew to earth in an emergency. The software is being applied in the test-bed area during prototyping; as portable data acquisition control devices in the field; as display panels during test flights of the prototypes; to monitor test flights from the ground, as well as in the project control rooms, where it provides real time telemetry data. One program currently being written in LabVIEW is an interface to the vehicle's 'parafoil' - an essential device that deploys at 20,000ft to slow the vehicle's descent.