NASA tested new technology designed to carry a spaceship, and someday-even astronauts safely to Mars. Reliance stated that the experiment was a success despite a parachute tangled during descent.
Proof of $ 150 million held yesterday, is the first of three to be submitted to the Supersonic Decelerator Low Density vehicle. The testing is being done at high altitudes on Earth simulating a descent through the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet.
A balloon carried the shaped craft flying saucer at a height of 120,000 feet (36 thousand 576 meters) into the sky from the base of Navy missiles on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Then the rocket ship threw himself over 30 miles high at supersonic speed.
As the ship prepares to fall back to Earth, a tube-shaped donut expands like a blowfish, creating an atmospheric deceleration to lower your speed at least Mach 4, ie 4 times the speed of sound .
After the parachute is deployed, but only partially. The vehicle made its hard landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Engineers do not see the failure of the parachute as a problem but as a way to learn more and apply knowledge in subsequent tests, he said NASA engineer, Dan Coatta, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California .
"In a way, that's even more valuable to us unlike that everything had gone according to plan experience," he said.
A boat was sent to retrieve the "black box" designed to separate from the vehicle and float. Equipped with a GPS sensor, the box contains important data of the flight, which will be analyzed by scientists.
The NASA researchers hope to reach a lot more understanding once the data are analyzed box, same to be removed along with the vehicle today and parachute. They also hope to recover a high resolution video.
"We have many things we need to see," said Ian Clark, principal investigator of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA, told reporters in a teleconference.
Since the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976, NASA has depended on slowing parachute landings and rovers.
But the most recent experiment used the deceleration device along with the parachute, which was about 110 feet (33. 528 meters) in diameter twice larger than that carried the rover Curiosity a ton in 2011.
The technology is needed to land larger spacecraft on Mars that allow the transport of supplies and materials "and to pave the way for future human explorers," as stipulated in a statement from NASA.
The development of technology "is the safest way to Mars," said Michael Gazarik, head of space technology in the NASA headquarters.
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