NASA's 'flying saucer' Mars test partially succeeds

NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator project completed its second flight test Monday when the saucer-shaped craft splashed down safely off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The decelerator, a flying-saucer shaped craft designed to slow spacecraft in thin atmospheres like on asteroids and on Mars, launched at 1:45 p.m. ET from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility using a large scientific balloon. After it was carried to an altitude of nearly 120,000 feet, the test vehicle separated from the balloon. An on-board rocket motor ignited and continued to carry the vehicle to nearly 180,000 feet.

NASA tested two technologies — a supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator and a supersonic parachute. The decelerator deployed and inflated. The supersonic parachute also deployed, but didn't inflate.

NASA vows to "study data from this test to learn and improve."

NASA still relies on some of the basic designs developed more than 40 years ago to land the Viking spacecraft on Mars, principal Jet Propulsion Laboratory investigator Ian Clark said earlier this month.

"We've been using the same parachutes for several decades now," he said. "If we want to eventually land a human on the surface of Mars, we realized we need to develop new technologies."

NASA's latest rover on Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, weighed about a ton. The new technology being tested would allow the landing of a load twice as heavy, and the use of multiple parachutes could mean even spacecraft of 20 to 30 tons could make a soft landing, Clark said.

The LDSD testing is conducted through NASA's Technology Demonstrations Missions program, based at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., with technology development work and testing led by JPL. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia coordinated range and safety support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and provided the balloon systems used to launch the LDSD test vehicle.